Month: January 2018

By Jim Hagarty
2006

Maybe your experience has been different from mine, but for some reason I cannot explain, I can’t get rid of my junk by holding garage sales. They obviously do the trick for other cluttermongers – some communities, in fact, pass bylaws limiting the number of yard sales a homeowner can have in a year because some are basically small businesses in disguise – but the few I’ve had have ended only in discouragement and embarrassment as I am continually forced to haul all the old stuff back into the garage.

It might be my prices. I’ll admit, greed gets the best of me and with visions of walking away with sagging pockets of silver dollars and two-dollar coins, I may be pricing myself out of the market. Maybe $10 is too much for a picture frame that cost $3 five years ago.

And presentation could be a problem. I kind of just spread everything around loosely on the grass, on the driveway, in cardboard boxes, on a couple of old tables. It may be that I need to hire a marketing guru or business coach to help me catch the eye of those hard-nosed bargain hunters out there.

But the biggest drawback, I can easily see, has to be with my timing. It appears as though you cannot straggle out of bed at 9 o’clock on Saturday morning and start pricing and hauling your stuff to the street after that. The real, professional garage sale junkies have already ransacked the town by then and have gone to wherever these people hang out between garage sales.

Which might be the crux of the problem. I guess I am a stranger in the yard sale subculture. If you get offended by people wandering through your garage offering you a buck for things they’ve been clearly told are not for sale, then yard peddling might not be the thing for you. And putting an ad in the paper saying, “No early birds, please” just seems to serve to attract them.

You also cannot have sensitive feelings to be a success in the garage-sale world. When someone thinks 25 cents is too much to pay for an old flute and tries to work you down to 15 cents, you simply can’t take it personally. Accept that you are talking to an alien, take their 15 cents and move on, and see if they ascend to some sort of Mother Ship after they leave.

In fact, if rudeness bothers you, don’t even think about exposing yourself to it by displaying the things you’ve been hoarding all these years. Your tender ears might be shocked at what you’ll hear.

But here’s the real rub. If everyone was as much a washout at this activity as you are, you might feel surrounded by compatriots. That, however, does not seem to be the case. A woman down the street announces proudly that she made $500 on her recent sale ($75 of which was yours as you now own a used kids’ pool table). And an old friend from another town says he recently hauled in $950 at a blowout lawn sale.

Give me a break!

Two summers ago, my son and I sat patiently watching people glance at – and walk by – our pile of what might euphemistically be called rubbish on their way to a neighbour’s place two doors down. The couple there were doing a booming business and we watched with bewilderment at how everything they had for sale, sold, including all the stuff on this big, long table. And then, when they were packing up, somebody came along and bought the table!

Last weekend, I put a few things out and amazingly, sold a couple of items. I leaned the bike I bought a few weeks ago for $10 up against a tree with a pricetag of $15 on it, hoping to launch a career as a capitalist. A woman pulled up in her car, got out and asked whether or not I’d take $10 for it as that is all she had on her. I said sure.

I also vowed never to do this again and have spent all week making deposits at the various charities around town as well as the dump where I probably should have been taking all this stuff all along. No one asks me impertinent questions at the dump.

By Jim Hagarty
2015

What we don’t have enough of in this world are people who hit you when they’re talking to you. Man I just love that. To keep your attention, I guess, the uninvited guest in your personal space keeps tapping you on the leg, the knee, the forearm, the elbow – any dangly part that can be reached – as they relate their fascinating tales, which are whispered conspiratorially as though the code to the U.S. nuclear warheads supply was being revealed.

And gosh darn it (sorry for the foul language), their stories do compel. In their presence, I am almost tempted to tell them that with narratives as captivating as they regularly roll out, there is no need for them to assault the people around them to get them to listen. But then, if I provided talker-hitters with that opinion, they might stop with the tapping and my gosh (there I go again), I love it. Maybe I even need it.

I sat beside such a touch-feely raconteur at an event the other day and I found myself fighting the urge to place body parts within his reach that he hadn’t yet tapped. It was a thrill listening to his tales and a cheap thrill feeling his hand all over my body. Well, not ALL over. That’s my secret goal for the next time we sit side by side. Which can’t come soon enough.

And yes, I promise to come out with my hands up, officer.

By Jim Hagarty
1992

Recently, the issue of whether or not men should be allowed to parade their bare beer bellies around town, came up for discussion and the controversy has been ballooning out of control ever since.

Please, allow me to inject a little perspective into the debate.

First of all, it took men a couple of hundred years of concerted political pressure to win the right to get those bellies out there where everybody can have a good look at them. (As powerful as King Henry VIII was, he was not at liberty to let that big gut out of its confines. For that matter, neither was the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.) If we are going to turn back the clock and force men back into covering up, we are going to have to be prepared to accept some of the other niceties of those ages, like spittoons, bleedings and beheadings. Seen in this light, the unrobed beer belly is a true sign of social enlightenment. (Seen in another light, it might be a sign that its owner has been drinking too much beer, but that’s another subject.)

Secondly, this idea that a great big, floppy, spongy belly is to be considered somewhat of a human eyesore, just doesn’t make sense. Exactly what part of the belly is to be found repulsive? The fact that it’s big? Bigness isn’t despised when it shows up in other men’s parts such as the shoulders or biceps. Do we object to it being floppy? If it was a pillow, we’d think it was great. As for spongy, what’s the problem? Serve up a cake that flexible and Betty Crocker would be breaking down your door to get at your recipe.

No, it’s obvious, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and, therefore, there can be no test to determine that a large, unclothed, male belly in a public place doesn’t belong there.

Thirdly, though it might seem to be a bit of a leap in logic, the bare beer belly is, in many ways, modern society’s last defence against the tyranny of youth and beauty that is always waiting around the corner to jump us. This week, it’s beer bellies. Next week, it will be knobby knees. Then freckles. Double chins. Bald heads. Soon, teams of Ugly Police will be enforced to cover up those parts of the male deemed to be repulsive.

So, in many ways, man’s struggle to bare his bloated belly is the struggle of free people everywhere. “Let my belly go!” should be our cry.

And lastly, and I want you to think about this carefully, if men are determined to shed some clothes on hot summer days, and the law allows it, is it not possible that the shirt could be the lesser of several evils. Imagine, for a moment, a situation where those men with the bellies decide one day that the shirt will stay but other garments just have to go. Is this a scene we want to contemplate?

Therefore, I see any criticism of the male right to expose yards of hairy, sweaty, bouncy, belly flesh on hot days as an attack on vital freedoms. And that is why I am proposing we march bare bellied through the streets this weekend. And I invite women everywhere to shed their tops and join us, as a sign of solidarity.

So, if you happen to see groups of women parading down the street this weekend with their shirts off, you’ll know my call for action has not gone unheard.

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(Some background: A court ruled that it was legal for women to bare their chests in public in Canada and weekend topless marches in several towns and cities were organized to celebrate the milestone. My newspaper column above, which seems a little obscure to me now, was published the day before the marches. I was in favour of the court’s decision and still support it, but women have not taken advantage of their new right in large numbers, even on beaches, with some exceptions.)

By Jim Hagarty
2013
I began to tell someone a funny story about one of the forgetful moments I’ve experienced lately when I was embarrassed to realize I couldn’t remember the story. Or even a good substitute.

By Jim Hagarty
2011

This is a metaphor for how times have changed, literally. In our farmhouse when I was a kid, there was one wallclock, with a long cord reaching down to an electrical outlet. No clocks with batteries in those days. That was it. One timepiece large enough for everyone to read. One.

When daylight savings time came and went, there was one clock to change. Somebody got up on a chair and changed it. It was always a big deal. And even though it preoccupied us when the big day for the change was coming, we still managed to make it late (or early) to church occasionally.

I am not counting the few wristwatches that might have been in our possession. The owners of those watches could manage to make the changes on their own. Depending on which car we owned at the time, there might have been a clock in it but we could be 98 per cent sure it didn’t work anyway so we didn’t have to worry about changing it.

Today, in our home, I changed 23 timekeepers, again, not counting wristwatches. But that is less than half of the items that keep track of time in our home.

My best count is that we possess 55 objects that display time and I am probably leaving a few out. The other 32 devices that I didn’t have to physically change, alter their own times automatically.

To me, this proves that life was simpler back when I was young. Not easier, not better, just simpler.

Here’s a breakdown of our current timepieces: four wallclocks; four clock radios; two alarm clocks; two stand-alone decorative clocks; a digital thermostat; four cellphones; four cordless phones and one landline phone; two TVs that display time; a cable TV digital box; one VCR; one DVD recorder; six computers; two printers; two microwave ovens; two video cameras; three digital voice recorders; four hand-held gamers (DS and PSP); one X-Box; one WII; two iPods; two cars; and one lonely little letter opener. One clock – the one on the stove – doesn’t work.

Fifty-five objects in 2011 to one in 1956. Is life 55 times more complex than it was 55 years ago?

Maybe all this says is that they hadn’t figured out how to put timepieces in every little thing back then. But maybe it goes a little deeper than that. I’d explain how for you but I don’t have the time right now.

By Jim Hagarty
2018

I envy people who are not funny or, at the very least, are pretty sure they aren’t. Life is easier for them. For those who are funny, or think they are, the entire world outside is one big stage from which to deliver their lines and every outing is cause for a performance.

So those who are funny, or who have been told they are (a fellow university student 45 years ago said the only career that would make any sense for you would be as a stand-up comedian) must take their show on the road every single time they leave home.

The audience members are plenty and varied but the best ones to entertain are the captive people who have no escape. I refer, of course, to cash register jockeys in stores. They can’t tell you to shut up and so, as they finger through the till trying to find some nickels and dimes, they have to listen to you.

Seeing the store is not busy, you try this old clanger out on a nice young man who did nothing to deserve it. And to simplify things, you leave out names and make up characters.

“My grandfather died,” you announce, and the young man’s face falls. “And at the funeral, my grandmother was asked if grandpa had any last words. Grandma says yes, his final words were, ‘Mary, put down that gun.'”

Now the poor young man is filled with emotions, sorry your grandpa died and horrified that your grandma killed him. Another customer approaches the till and you have no time to deconstruct the story, so you flee.

At another store, a short time later, another checkout line on a very snowy day, you say to the young woman behind the counter, “So, are you coming over to shovel out my driveway?” This, in your mind, is just a friendly comment on the extreme weather outside. Immediately, on the clerk’s face, you read her mind wondering why a 66-year-old man is asking a 25-year-old woman to come over to his place.

This time you try to extricate yourself and what better way to do that than to refer to your wife. “If I go out with a snowshovel, I could shovel all day without even one neighbour looking in my direction. So I send out my wife with a shovel and five minutes later, three neighbours with snowblowers are on the scene.”

You think you’ve successfully cleaned up in Aisle 5, but the look on the clerk’s face say she is now dealing with a man who forces his wife to go out and shovel the driveway. She looks like she is about to push that button under the counter that every clerk must surely push when she wants to summon security.

So this is the plight of the funny man, or at least one who believes he is funny. It is his mission, he thinks, to cheer up the world but his feeble efforts cause only fear, alarm and expressed regrets on the sudden death of an ancestor.

He thinks about all this as he shovels his driveway alone, his wife knitting with the dog on her lap in their nice warm house. And he vows to never leave home again.

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(Hey, this is my first original, new story of 2018. Woo hoo!)

By Jim Hagarty
1994

There is a place where three modern obsessions come together in daily contact and the results are not always pleasant. At the local coffee shop, here and there among the “normal” people, are coffee-addicted news junkies who are also too cheap to buy a paper. To avoid laying down that big 50 cents for reading material, they will subject themselves to all sorts of frustration, disappointment and yes, even humiliation, all in public view. But before you condemn these types, try pitying them. How would you like to be hooked on something you absolutely refuse to pay for?

Like most character types in this world, coffee shop newshounds can be classed into a few specific categories. If you recognize yourself in any of these examples, you might want to think about seeking help.

The Paper Hog
Let’s start with the most objectionable character first. This person must have before him on his little table in the corner, EVERY SINGLE SECTION OF EVERY PAPER IN THE PLACE, as if he can read them all at once. A defining characteristic is his ability to completely ignore the glaring eyes of the other would-be readers in the shop who spend their visit to the place imagining suitable punishments for the lout, most of them involving either electric shock or some sort of water torture.

The Thief
Somewhere in every town or city, lurks a true menace who, when finished with the paper, leaves the coffee shop with a section (or two), from sports, to business to “insight.” This is a truly criminal act as newspaper junkies then must spend 10 minutes going frantically through every single paper in the rack, looking for that section, which of course, no longer exists, like the shattered kid looking for the absent toy assault rifle under the Christmas tree.

The Clipper
Living in every city is a woman who wears one of those magnifying glasses on a cord around her neck and comes to the shop well-equipped with a pair of tiny scissors. Before the horrified stares of onlooking newshounds waiting for her paper, she begins to carefully clip out all the articles which interest her and file them away in a little leatherette folder with which she eventually exits the shop.

The Co-reader
This type has no interest in any part of the paper except the part you’re reading and so will sit on the stool beside you, hover like a dentist and read over your shoulder.

The Co-reader – Complete With Sound
Same as above only this guy shares comments on the stories you and he are co-reading. “So, whadya say? Michael Jackson divorced in six months?” (Your only appropriate response is to look at him and say, “Get away from me!”)

The Sharer
Perhaps the most honest, this guy marches over to your table, grabs the sections you’re not reading, asks, “You readin’ these?” and leaves with them. But of course, those were the sections you were just about to get to, wanting especially the page with the article on the connection between backaches and nectarines.

The Broadcaster
This guy sees it as his job to keep the rest of the coffee-shop gang informed about the goings on of the world and of his opinions about them. So in a loud voice, he announces as he reads: “Each photo radar unit is capable of catching two speeders every second. Well, it’ll be a hot day in February when they catch me with their little picture vans, the creeps.”

The Custodian
On second thought, this guy might be even more hated than the Paper Hog, because he gathers up all the papers in front of him, and then is joined by a friend so the two spend the next half hour swapping lies while the paper sits unread before them and a half a dozen news junkies go into withdrawal.

The Stranger
Now and then, a stranger appears, bearing his very own paper which he actually bought in a box outside. This is a big mistake on his part as he is then called on repeatedly to try to convince his fellow coffee-shop dwellers that this paper is, in fact, really his and doesn’t belong to the restaurant. Failing to do that, he quits buying papers and shows up from then on without one and thus, another coffee-shop newshound is born.

The end.