Month: September 2016

By Jim Hagarty
1987

Some people enjoy shopping for clothes and if I can ever bring myself to go out and buy a hat, it will be off to them.

You know the type. They stroll by a store on their way to mail a letter, see a sweater they like in the window, walk in, try it on, buy it and wear it home. Life is easy for these people.

In contrast, there are many unfortunate souls in the world who haven’t a clue what they like, what’s in, what looks good and what goes with what. For them, the experience of buying clothes is unpleasant at best, traumatic at worst. They are a confused group, wishing they could look like the people in the catalogue pictures but never quite managing it. The latest fashion trends are always disappearing over the top of the next hill just as they come to the bottom of the one before it. Two years after the very last person to ever wear a red and yellow striped velour pullover with a zipper in the collar and a giraffe on the breast pocket has thrown the garment away, they go out and buy one.

These people can most often be seen circling the clothing racks in the stores with stunned and saddened looks upon their faces. They know they have to purchase something, or face being mistaken for a vagrant the next time they walk down the street, but they just wish they didn’t have to be the ones to do the buying. If someone else would bring them home a big box of clothes once a year, heave it on the floor at their feet with orders to, “Here. Wear these!”, they would. And they’d be perfectly happy to do so.

The problem with these otherwise-normal individuals cannot be fully understood without considering certain aspects of their characters.
First off, for the most part, they grew up in frugal homes where the early years of their lives were spent walking around in clothes several other people had walked around in before them. To find out what they’d be wearing in the coming year, they only had to look at what their slightly older relatives wore the year before. This was a good system and they wish it was still in effect. Even now, they often have to resist the urge to go up to a person wearing something they like and say, “You mind lettin’ me know when you’re through with that shirt?”

Unfortunately, to their eternal woe, this hand-me-down business led these people to believe clothing should cost very little. Free is about the right price to pay, in their minds. Therefore, long after the aunts have stopped bringing around the cardboard boxes filled with the cousins’ socks, shoes, shirts and shorts, they just can’t get used to paying for what used to cost them nothing. They become, in time, professional bargain hunters, proud to tell you about the amazing distance they can stretch a penny. Nothing could make them happier than to get three nice belts for five bucks or two neckties for 99 cents. While this practice may keep them in belts and ties, it rarely keeps them in style.

The second flaw in the personalities of these people is their obstinate disregard for the importance of clothing. They acknowledge clothes are a handy way to keep strangers from staring at the naked body and yes, they sure work good for keeping out the wind, rain, cold and sun, but beyond that, their value is limited. To the observation, “That coat is really you,” they’re liable to say in all grumpiness, “No it isn’t. I’m me. That coat is that coat. But if you think it’s me, let it pay for itself and the two of us will be glad to get out of here.”

To these people, keeping dressed falls about in the same category as keeping fed. These are things you certainly have to do, all right, but they’re not the sorts of activities you want to go and make a big event out of. They generally consider a $5.95 restaurant meal an extravagance that shouldn’t be repeated too often.

The final and most important reason many people have trouble buying new clothes is they don’t want to part with the old ones. They’re sentimental about their old shirts, sweaters, pants, and yes, even their old socks. That old jacket, for example, was bought with some of the money from their first full-time job and while the job and the rest of the money are long gone, the coat’s still here. To throw it out would be to toss away several years of memories and they worry their new life might get stranded out there in mid-air if they get rid of all the things that connect it to their old one.

That’s why, when they do finally get all their new clothes home and hung in their closet, they usually say, “There. That oughta do me for a while,” and then they put on their old jeans, socks, T-shirt and running shoes – the very things they bought the new clothes to replace.

Animals are lucky. God gives them one coat when they’re born, they wear it 10 or 20 years and take it with them when they leave.
How efficient.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

If a cricket crawls up your nose
Immediately remove all your clothes
And jump in a lake.
That’s all it will take.
Cause crickets hate getting wet toes.

By Jim Hagarty
2016

When I sat down to start this blog, I had one name and one name only in mind for it.

wanderingmind.com

That was the name, Wandering Mind, of the humour column I wrote every week in the last newspaper I worked at.

But wanderingmind.com was taken. Its registration ends in 2017 but the owner would probably renew it. I could have contacted the owner and asked to buy it but implied in the word “buy” is the word money and I don’t have any. I tried mywanderingmind.com. Taken.

Aaargh!!!!

I tried a few others. Most of them taken. Here are a few I came up with:

mybusykeyboard.com
thoughtsforsale.com
wanderingkeyboard.com
thewanderingkeyboard.com
storygallory.com
untidymind.com
thestorymaker.com
storiesoutofschool.com
storycooker.com
storiestosmileby.com

I gave up and went to bed. The next day, lifesentences.com popped into my head. But it had a justice system ring to it. Criminals would be going to my site to figure out how they could get out early.

I like the word “sentences” and given that these sentences would be about my lifetime here on earth, I thought I would put the two words together. I ran the concept past each member of my family. It was the first one (after wanderingmind.com) that they all liked and liked a lot.

So I did a registration check on lifetimesentences.com.

It isn’t available.

I own it now.

By Jim Hagarty
2016

I hate moral dilemmas.

They are always so dilemmaish.

And they involve morals.

We have two McDonald`s restaurants in my town. Owned by the same people. They decided a few years ago to chase all the seniors away from the one in the south end to the older outlet in the east end. They accomplished this by offering coffee for less for seniors in the east. Seniors being seniors, we all trooped over there.

The price was $1.05 for a small cup, a full 50 cents off the regular price. And, to make the deal sweeter, you could go back for a free refill.

I live in the parking lot of the McDonald`s in the east end now. I never go inside the restaurant, preferring to wander through the drivethrough. I know all the servers at the windows and they know me. Many of them smile as I pull up, some don’t.

Yesterday, I got a shock and a half. The price for a senior’s coffee just went up by 30 cents. I pulled up to the window, truly stunned, and I saw a sign on the window announcing the momentous change. However, at the bottom of the notice it said, “Keep enjoying your bottomless cup.”

Now, I knew it was possible for me, after finishing my first cup, to drive back through the line and ask for a free refill. I have done that many times. Ask my waistline if you doubt me.

So I sat there in my asphalt living room under the shady trees at the back of the lot, trying to take in the enormity of what was happening. My $1.05 coffees were gone forever.

But the words, “bottomless cup” kept ricocheting through my mind. I wondered what “bottomless”, in this situation, might actually mean. More than one free refill, perhaps? Nah, couldn’t be. I left the parking lot and went on with my business.

But during the day, a plan formulated. I would buy my first cup of coffee in the early morning and then go bottomless for the rest of the day, as creepy as that might sound to you.

I decided to test my idea out.

I drove back to the restaurant just after lunch and paid the horrific price of $1.35 for another “senior’s” coffee. Then, instead of immediately going back for a refill, I left. I drove to two stores where I did some shopping. I wandered, in no big hurry.

Finally, over an hour later, I drove back through the drivethrough, nervously.

“Could I have a free refill of a senior’s coffee?” I asked the young man whose voice came over the speaker. It might have been my imagination, but he seemed to hesitate. Then told me to drive through.

So, I handed my cup to the woman at the second window and got my refill. Things were working out bottomlessly.

But it was when I went back four hours later, that the sweat really started to bead on my forehead. Did I have the nerve to actually ask for a free refill, four hours after I had had my last free refill? Well, did I?

I pulled up to the speaker, heart beating hard in my chest. This was it. I am not a good liar.

“Can I help you,” a young woman asked.

“Yes, can I have a free refill of a senior’s regular?”

Nothing. The staff had obviously been alerted and called to a special emergency meeting. It is rare that a police officer or two cannot be found lurking somewhere around the restaurant, though none qualify for a senior’s coffee.

Too late to change my mind. There were no other cars in the drivethrough. It was obvious the staff logs were being gone over. No one had driven through during the past half hour, asking for a senior’s coffee. Where in hell did this guy come from?

Oh man, I wished I was anywhere else but there at that moment. I was headed for the Big House.

“Sure, come on up,” said the young woman. I started driving, then realized I had to hand her a four-hour-old paper cup through the window. She is going to realize the little bit of coffee inside it is stone dead cold. I was afraid to extend my wrist in case a handcuff was clamped on it.

She smiled, as friendly as could be. Gave me my free refill. Even wished me a good day.

To recap, I spent $1.35 for one coffee almost five hours before and turned that one coffee into three. That amounts to 45 cents a cup. My mind filled up with possibilities as I sat in my asphalt living room under the shady tree.

Today, I try for four cups.

My joy is bottomless.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There is a woman from Nashville
Who’s inhaling a lot of hash still.
Police try to stop her,
“I won’t, you dumb copper.”
Nothing works but I bet lots of cash will.

By Jim Hagarty
2016

Someone wrote a beautiful little story I saw on Facebook one day. I didn’t save it and I am sure I would have a hard time finding it again.

So from memory, I will try to recreate the sentiment of it, accompanied by my own thoughts on it.

A big part of the delight of raising children are the many “first times” involved in the adventure. The first time you hold your child in your arms, their first bath, their first bedtime story, their first steps, the first time they call you Daddy. Their first day at school, the first time they ride a bike with no training wheels. The first night they stay over at a friend’s place.

Almost all of these first times are more or less predictable. We don’t know on what day they will happen, but we anticipate all these significant stages of development and they happen more or less on cue.

But what we cannot know is the timing of the many “last times” that are also inevitable. The last time we hold them in our arms, the last horsey ride, the last bedtime story, the last time they come running to meet us at the front door when we come home from work and jump up to be caught before we’ve set all our gear down.

For a while, it seems like there are more last times than first but that isn’t exactly true. There are always more firsts. The first boyfriend, the first extended time away from home, the first time behind the wheel of a car.

Maybe it is just as well that a parent doesn’t know that when he held his daughter’s hand on the way to school that day, that that would be the last time he would do that. Or when he laced up his son’s skates in the dressing room that day, he would never lace them up again. The next week, a sign on the door said, “Players and coaches only.” No more Dads.

I think if we knew that this time holding one end of the skipping rope would be the last or this song at bedtime to encourage sleep would be the very last song you would sing, you might go a little crazy. It is just as well we don’t know.

We have two big maple trees in our front yard. For a few years, they were filled with kids. My daughter would take a book up into the branches with her and sit there by the hour reading. Many times, I didn’t know the trees were populated until I walked by them and heard someone call my name from on high.

A couple of summers ago, I sat on my front porch and gazed up at the trees. It was August, fall around the corner. And it struck me. Not one boy or girl had scaled the lofty branches of the trees that year at all. My sadness was overwhelming.

But whatever Greater Power gives us our children, is kind. Each stage in their lives is gradually replaced by a new stage and the new ones are just as good in a hundred ways as the old ones.

Nevertheless, nothing can compare to tobogganing down a snow-covered hill with your child for the first time. Or taking them for their first ride on a train.

At least it seems that way. Parents who have gone through this already tell me the best is yet to come.

I believe them.