By Jim Hagarty
1995
I’m driving down the highway when I see a car in my lane, heading straight for me. He’s passing seven or eight cars because he’s a VERY IMPORTANT GUY and he’s just GOT TO GET THERE and of course, nobody’s letting him back into the lineup because they want to punish him and so, five seconds before my certain death, I begin to see the irony of the situation. Is this what the inventors of the automobile envisioned a hundred years ago? That people would drive towards each other in the same lane at 90 kilometres an hour in the middle of winter because somebody’s got to get home to watch the afternoon rerun of Cheers?
Anyway, my death-defying road companion squeaked back into line in time and I was spared for another day so I gave him my usual friendly motorist’s wave as we passed each other and resumed whistling a happy tune.
Is it just me, or is life in the ’90s getting a little more cruel by the day? A snowmobiler in my little corner of the world has decided the best place to practise his twists and turns is on my front yard, between our two young maples while there is a half-inch of snow lying around on a still-only half-frozen lawn. There are hundreds of kilometres of trails from here to the North Pole and back but none of them, I guess, could ever match that little square patch of green at the front of my home in the city.
But in a way, it doesn’t surprise me that our lawn should provide a perfect avenue for snow machines. It’s been an ideal bicycle path for years as well as a wonderful place to dispose of garbage. I don’t know precisely how far we live away from the nearby variety store, fast-food restaurant and coffee shop but I can tell you in relative terms. We are exactly one bag of potato chips, one coffee (small) and one Happy Burger away. If you ever want to know how long it takes to drink a can of pop, I can demonstrate. It takes the same amount of time required to walk from Corner Convenience to the edge of my driveway.
But what the heck? Any time you can look out your window and see a man relieving himself in broad daylight, you have to count yourself a lucky guy.
Is the world going nuts? Three times in recent weeks, I’ve contacted businesses and left messages which basically boil down to the following: I’ve got this little bag of money I’ve saved up here and I WANT TO GIVE IT TO YOU SO PLEASE CALL ME! In some cases, I’ve phoned back and repeated my request. Yet, they have never returned my calls. How bad is it getting when nobody wants your money? And when the odd one who does, wants it all in one shot? I was recently thrilled to get a bill for $24 for four new nothing-special wheel nuts for my car. That’s only $11 less than the total amount I paid for my first used car almost 30 years ago.
Six dollars used to buy you admission for two to a movie, complete with popcorn, and a couple of milkshakes after. Now it buys you a wheel nut. Thank God I didn’t need a bolt.
I made eye contact with four teenagers who were walking my way on the sidewalk a while ago so I said, “hi!” The ringleader of this little band of Marlon Brandos stopped in pretended shock, and mockingly replied, “Oh, hi!” His three little tagalongs imitated him, dutifully. Now, when did saying “hi” to strangers become incorrect?
Ah, sometimes you wonder why some people sit in the beer parlours from morning to night, calling for the waiters to keep bringing that liquid glow. Then other days, you wonder why all the rest of us aren’t sitting in there too.
It gets bad, and then it gets worse. The other day, a cow somewhere in South America, shot another cow in the head. I’m not making this up. A cow gunned down another cow. It stepped on a loaded gun which went off, wounding another nearby bovine. This is the definition of when you know there are too many guns around. When the animals start doing the hunting.
On the other hand, maybe the cow’s assault was intentional, the desperate action of just another overwrought product of the ’90s.
