Lifetime Sentences

When you consume watermelon with just a little less enthusiasm than a very hungry warthog might do, you are bound to dribble some of the juicy goodness down the front of your shirt. If that garment happens to be a brand new T-shirt which you have saved up for a year to buy, your distress will be instant and real.

The solution to this dilemma, of course, sits in bottles on the shelves of the local Pennyrama but being frugal, you are not in the mood to shell out many bucks for a container of Stainaway or Slopstop. As effective as these treatments might be, you are sure there is an easier answer in the materials you already have somewhere in your cupboards and on the shelves in the garage.

So, you consult the Internet and sure enough, you already have all it takes to remove any and all stains from your clothes, new and old. Best of all, the remedies are easy and work quickly.

Here are a few practical home formulas for removing watermelon stains and many other non-lethal spots.

1. Mix a solution of blue dish detergent, white vinegar and water.

2. Stretch your shirt out fully in your bathtub. If you do not have a tub, consider getting one installed.

3. Submerge your shirt in lukewarm water, then spread the solution you have prepared over the stains. Rub in lightly with the forefinger of your left hand.

4. Let garment and solution sit for three full days.

5. Remove the shirt and without rinsing it, apply generous amounts of rubbing alcohol over the stain(s). Let sit for two days and then apply one cup of hydrogen peroxide.

6. One week later, hang the shirt on the line and if you have access to an air rifle or pistol, shoot pellets that have been dipped in premium gasoline at the stain. Leave the shirt on the line overnight.

7. Lay your shirt flat on a table and sprinkle equal amounts of baking soda and epsom salts across the stain. Rub in lightly with a toothbrush and if the stain is stubborn, eventually switch to a wirebrush.

8. Rinse the shirt in warm water and then dip the stained section into a mixture of turpentine and motor oil – 5W30.

9. Before the shirt is completely dry, spread crushed ice cubes over the stain, mixed with fine sawdust and play sand, if you have some available, along with a litre of warm cola. Leave sit for two days, then rinse in lukewarm water.

10. This final step is important. Tie your shirt to the radio aerial of your car and drive for one solid hour, slightly over the speed limit. The stain will be gone when you pull back into your driveway.

If, by some chance, these steps do not work, there is a sale on Stainaway at Pennyrama this week. Also, new tee shirts are half price till Saturday at Save a Buck.

You’re welcome.

©2021 Jim Hagarty

There is a story that has disturbed me my whole life and I feel the need to address it as best I can. It involves the account of an old lady who swallowed a fly. Why anyone thought this was worthy of a news item I will never know but the journalist who brought the incident to light did a very poor job of reporting, in my opinion. And as a lifelong journalist myself, I feel my viewpoint should have some validity.

First off, that an old lady would swallow a fly is not an earth-shattering event so I really think the reporter should have found something more important to examine that day. But then the journalist said he didn’t know why the woman swallowed the fly. Well, a very poor job he did and I think I might have fired him if he brought that story back to the newsroom on my watch. He should have asked the subject of his story why she swallowed the fly. But he never did. And then he made the incredible prediction that because she swallowed a fly, the woman was likely to die. If she did, I believe she would be the first person on record to die from ingesting a fly, but the reporter was an alarmist and ignorant as well.

My fear is he told the old lady she was probably going to die because the first thing she did was chase down a spider somehow and swallowed that, in the hopes it would catch the fly. This could not have been easy for her to do with likely eyesight and mobility problems but she found a spider, opened her gob and popped it in.

Realizing she now had a spider and a fly inside her, she panicked, I think, and chased down a bird which she swallowed to catch the spider. Her alarm must have heightened even more as she then grabbed a cat and swallowed that, in the hope that the cat would catch the bird she had sent down her throat. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to swallow a cat but it is a sign of her distress that she would put herself through that. And I think she did that because that alarmist reporter put the idea into her head that she might die from swallowing the fly which I don’t believe she would have.

The incredible story the reporter ended up with then goes on to detail how the woman swallowed a dog to catch the cat. How much dog could one woman swallow, I wonder. I hope it was not a Great Dane.

In any case, the woman was desperate by then and found herself a cow to swallow to catch the dog. Now, any fifth grader could have told the poor lady that cows do not normally try to catch dogs. I hope it wasn’t the reporter who suggested to her that they do. In any case, she swallowed a cow.

And then, she went just one crazy step too far. She decided she had to do something about the cow and so she found a horse, stuffed the poor creature into her mouth and swallowed it, mane, hooves, tail, the whole shebang. Again, she was obviously starting to lose it because horses never try to catch cows.

And this is where the story took a tragic turn. After swallowing the horse, the old lady died. And all the reporter could say was, “She died, of course.” Of course? The reporter knew the horse would kill the woman but apparently he didn’t think to warn her. I just hope he didn’t encourage her.

So, to wrap up, one life was lost when the woman swallowed the fly. The unfortunate fly died, “of course”! Problem solved. Or at least it should have been. But because the old lady was acting on poor information and probably out of panic, the lives of six other creatures were also lost including that of the old lady herself.

I don’t want to sound mean, but I almost wish the old lady had survived swallowing that last big entree long enough to swallow the damn reporter to catch the horse. It would have served the silly scribe right to have suffered the indignity of slithering down into the old lady’s innards.

“I don’t know why she swallowed the fly,” he had written.

Dude, all you had to do was ask her. So much misery could have been spared.

I call journalistic malfeasance. Maybe an investigation is warranted. We have a dead old woman, and deceased fly, spider, cat, dog, cow and horse. The only one to walk away was the reporter.

Sounds a bit suspicious to me. From my experience as a newspaper editor, I know that some reporters will do anything for a good story. Anything

©2017 Jim Hagarty

As a man gets on in years, he requires a metric or two to measure whether or not he is still on the righteous path he tried to trod so many decades ago. I think I may have discovered just such a marker by which a senior male can chart his progress or lack of it.

The possibility awaiting all men, we may as well be clear, is that he will slowly but surely slip into a state some might describe as grumpy but is better known by its proper name, curmudgeonitis.

Curmudgeonitis is a few steps beyond grumpy. Even kids, teenagers, and middle-agers can have bouts of grumpiness. But only old men can lay claim to the state of grumpy times ten.

To be a true curmudgeon, a man has to be able to get mad at things that no one else in the world could possibly get upset with.

So here is my test. You have erected a large plywood platform upon a steel pole in the backyard to serve as a bird feeder. A big tub of feed is dumped in the centre of the feeder each morning, topped off with a small cup of unsalted peanuts.

For a couple of months, the feeder is filled with a wide variety of birds from sparrows and chickadees to grackles, bluejays and cardinals.

Fantastic.

Then a pair of doves show up. Doves as a symbol of peace my ass. These greedy fat brown creatures decide the whole damn feeder is theirs and any other species uses the feeder at the same time at the risk of extreme pecking.

This is an intolerable situation and so you find yourself at your kitchen window, yelling at a pair of doves. The yelling has no effect.

So, I submit that when you reach the stage in life where you are yelling out your window at doves, curmudgeonitis has taken root. However, just to add another layer of complexity: It is not the yelling that is the indicator, it is the idea that a man shouting out his window at doves could conceivably have the effect of causing the doves to rethink their behaviour and to say to themselves, “Well, I guess we better cut that out!”

Next stage: Cursing at the clouds that now and then prevent a perfect view of the baby blue sky.

©2017 Jim Hagarty

Here’s another thing that didn’t happen to you this week but did to me.

I was witness to the worst case of lawn rage I’ve ever seen. A guy speeding down my street yesterday went nuts when he saw that the road was blocked for construction but he didn’t let a little thing like a gigantic truck get in his way.

Instead, barely even slowing down, he detoured up onto my lawn, drove on it the whole width of our double lot, past our two maple trees and out the other side to the street again.

A neighbour and I happened to be standing on the lawn at the time watching the construction. Our angry driver came almost close enough to us to have run over our feet. I don’t know if he even saw us.

Obviously, our hero was on his way to the National Genius Convention in Toronto and must have been late.

The only thing that bothered me about the incident was I was supposed to catch a ride with him to the convention where I am to be a guest speaker but, in his haste, he must have forgot to pick me up.

©2014 Jim Hagarty

I will go out on a limb and venture to say that you did not do this yesterday. If I am wrong, let me know.

I was at our back fence when I saw our cat Mario lurking by the composter. A few minutes later, I saw him streaking madly for the garage. With a mouse in his mouth. This meant only one thing. A half eaten rodent was soon to be deposited on the garage floor and I would be on my knees cleaning up blood and guts, a job I do not have a lot of good feelings for.

I took off running. I surprised myself and discovered that I am able to outrun a cat with a mouse in its mouth.

I got to the garage door and slammed it shut, then noticed the window was open too. I quickly closed it.

Mario was left frustrated outside with his bounty which he was bringing to me as a gift.

It’s funny. I hobble down the street every day and tell the neighbours (who also run away), how much my hip hurts. However, my true Olympian spirit showed in my high-speed, mouse-deflecting sprint to the garage, and my bones were not a factor.

The score so far is Mario, 35, Jim, 1, but at least I’m on the board.

©2014 Jim Hagarty

I like to read the comments on Internet news sites but I am not always sure how seriously to take them.

I like those sites that require commenters to register and use their real names. But anonymous postings don’t bother me if the writer has something worthwhile to say.

However, I could not read the comment submitted by Throbby the Slobber Worm today. I just couldn’t.

And I hope, during my remaining days, however few or many they may be, that I never actually have to meet and converse with Throbby the Slobber Worm. Or Mrs. Throbby. Or any of the rest of the Slobber Worms. I really do.

I have enough problems as it is.

©2016 Jim Hagarty

I don’t idolize just anybody but these guys really impress.

The world is running out of heroes, but maybe it’s still too early to count out the human race. In New York, there lives a man whose recent accomplishment shows that there isn’t much we can’t achieve if we put our mind, and in this case, our mouth, into it.

This week Joey Chestnut became the world’s hot-dog eating champion, knocking off six-time title holder Takeru Kobayashi and my hat is off to him. Chestnut, competing in the annual Fourth of July competition, broke his own world record by inhaling 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes – a staggering one every 10.9 seconds – before a screaming crowd in Coney Island.

“If I needed to eat another one right now, I could,” the 23-year-old Californian said after receiving the mustard yellow belt emblematic of hot-dog eating supremacy

Almost as good as the event was the newspaper story describing it: “The two gustatory gladiators quickly distanced themselves from the rest of the 17 competitors, processing more beef than a slaughterhouse within the first few minutes. The two had each downed 60 hot dogs with 60 seconds to go when Chestnut, the veins on his forehead extended, put away the final franks to end Kobayashi’s reign.”

You know, we all come to our rightful place in life after a while and Joey Chestnut, obviously, has found his mission as a speedy consumer of tube steaks. There are worse fates. And there are worse foods to be ingested in a hurry.

I can happily live out the rest of my life taking a pass on seeing how fast I can gobble up some of the disgusting things people will eat, but to further the development of homo sapiens as a species, there is a record involving one particular sandwich for which I would be willing to compete. And that is the grilled cheese, a few of which I’ve put away in my life, especially during my bachelor years.

There are annual contests in the U.S. with prizes nearing $30,000. The current world record belongs to Sonya Thomas who devoured 25 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes in a contest in 2005.

Stand back. Sonya, my dear. I’m sure I can do better than that.

Without even trying.

©2007 Jim Hagarty

When you spend as much time studying wild rabbits in your backyard as I have these past two years, you can almost not help but get to know them pretty well.

I am especially on some sort of rabbit-man wavelength with My Bunny, a smallish female who thinks I’m okay. She will sometimes come right up to me when I call her and she has fetched me when her food supply is low.

Consequently, I have learned how to communicate with this bunny in particular. That is how I knew what I had to do when I saw her come bounding out of our tool shed yesterday afternoon. In circumstances such as this, you need to be stern and project seriousness. So, I spoke to My Bunny in somewhat of a scolding voice while still being friendly.

Bunny froze when she realized I had seen her emerge from the shed.

“Hey Bunny,” I said. “What are you doing in the shed? You’re not supposed to go in there. I’ve lost track of what might be lying around. You might eat something you shouldn’t. So don’t ever go back into the shed. Okay?”

By the end of my message, Bunny had turned her head and was looking right at me. She was really absorbing my commands and I felt good that I was getting through to her. I don’t like to talk down to her but it’s not easy to do anything else with a creature that stands less than a foot tall.

I was glad I had gotten through.

And once she fully understood what I was saying, Bunny turned around and hopped back into the shed.

Apparently, my serious words did not register. Next time I will try to remember to wipe the smile off my face when I deliver my verbal discipline.

It is possible that bunnies don’t do well with mixed messages.

©2022 Jim Hagarty

As we all know, there are many paths that can lead us to experience true joy, the feeling that can only be absorbed and rarely explained. Many thousands of books, in fact entire religions, have been developed to show the ways to attain what can only be thought of as the ultimate human emotion. Usually, the formulas offered have something to do with helping others.

And while I am on board with all that, I would like to offer an often-overlooked direct route to joy.

In our town, we have regular “treasure hunts”, whereby citizens can set items we no longer want on our boulevards with the understanding that anyone who might want those items is free to stop and take them home. We have a wonderful brown pop fridge I picked up 20 years ago on somebody’s curb and which has been keeping our beverages cold every day ever since. I paid zero for it. It is one of our prized possessions.

And while picking up someone else’s castaways can perk up a person’s day, the other side of those transactions can sometimes be even more meaningful. Many an unwanted thing has disappeared from our possession thanks to a car slowing down and a trunk opening up.

But a bit of patience is sometimes required. We had a beautiful wooden headboard for a single bed that needed to go. It wouldn’t fit in our car so I couldn’t donate it to a second-hand store. Our only hope was to drag it to the end of the driveway with a big sign “FREE” on it and wait for a Good Samaritan to relieve us of our burden.

Every day for two weeks, I dragged the headboard to the street and propped it up against a tree. And every day, the many passersby ignored our former treasure. Every night I dragged it back into the garage, discouraged and frustrated. I started to entertain the idea of cutting it up and making something other than a headboard out of it.

Last Thursday night, I forgot to bring the darned thing – yes, it had become a darned thing – in from the street. At 2 a.m., up for one of my early morning peanut butter runs, I thought of going out and getting it but decided to just let it stay where it was as an effort such as that might or might not involve putting on pants.

The next morning, I went out to see how it was doing. The darned thing was gone.

Not believing my eyes, I checked to see if someone else had brought it back up to the house. They hadn’t. I looked next door to see if hooligans had smashed it in the parking lot there while I was demolishing my third tablespoon of peanut butter. Finally, I realized that it was truly gone.

I felt pretty darned good for the rest of that day.

You might even say I was joyful.

©2022 Jim Hagarty

We all make our choices, many of them a day sometimes. Some better than others.

Take the Texan who saw an armadillo on a road Thursday. Immediately, he chose to do what I know I would have done. He pulled out his gun and shot the armor-plated animal.

Once a bullet leaves a gun, you can’t be completely sure where it might end up. The bullet the gunslinger fired bounced off the animal and hit the man in the head.

This is the second person shot by armadillo-ricochet this year. A few months ago in Georgia, a man shot at an armadillo and the bullet bounced off and hit his mother-in-law.

It is therefore obvious that the government needs to crack down on armadillos, maybe ban them. Americans wanting to shoot themselves and their mothers-in-law should not have to aim at armadillos to get the job done.

But one thing is clear, to some people, at least. Any time we see a live wild animal we need to jump out of our truck and kill it.

©2015 Jim Hagarty