As vicious as paint stripper
by Robert LaFrance
Everyone
in the family agrees that my cousin Helen has a voice like paint stripper, but
they don’t know the half of it.
Last
Wednesday evening her husband Les was sitting around the club with a bunch of
us retired folk and he outlined some of the suffering he goes through every day
of his life. Although he’s an agnostic, Helen forces him to go to church every
Sunday and twice at Christmas; when they go anywhere in their Gremlin, he
drives but gets direction for every movement and she manipulates the heater
controls, and, among other things, if he suggests a certain restaurant, she
insists on a different one.
She
makes fun of his name, which is Les Cargeau and we all know that it sounds like
the French word for snail, and Les lets her get away with it, day after day,
even though her name was Earthe, as in Helen Earthe. That pretty much describes
his situation – Hell on Earth. On the other hand, her name can be said to be
Helen Snail.
George
and we were talking about ways that Les could manage Helen better. We do that
every couple of weeks but as we know it hasn’t helped up to now.
“How
about if you either divorce her or kill her?” asked Fred Crowntree, who, as a
former Special Forces soldier, always leans toward direct action. Les said that
Helen controlled all the money so that first recourse was closed to him, and he
couldn’t take the second option because it is now illegal.
“What
to do, what to do?” murmured Frank Bellimon, and we all sarcastically agreed
that he had admirably outlined the situation. “How about if we kidnap her and
lock her in a cabin somewhere?” Les wasn’t clear how this could help his
situation, but Frank had it all figured out. “Don’t you see? Les rescues her
and she will be forever grateful. His life will be sunshine and roses from then
on.”
Aside
from the obvious flaws in the plan – committing felonies, conspiracy and
finding a suitable cabin – it was just too much work. Just then the club’s door
burst open and Les’s neighbour Aloysius DeMerchant came in bearing a note for
Les who quickly opened it and read the hastily written sentences:
“I
can’t stand it any more, Snail. I am running away with a weight-lifter who
prefers to be called a body-builder. And what a body! He’s rich, so you can
keep all our money and land, and you can keep seeing that redhead in
Florenceville. Not much love, Helen.”
Les folded the note,
now a legal document, and put it in his shirt pocket. “Willie (the bartender),”
Les called out, “drop us off a round and keep them coming! Single malt scotch
please! I know it’s not April Fool’s Day, therefore it’s not a cruel joke, so
at last I am free. And as to that redhead, we’re just friends.”
******************
Just
a few comments about the U.S.A. and therefore Donald Trump. As of this writing,
as the snow gently falls in Kincardine, NB, Trump has shut down a good portion
of the American government and put 800,000 people out of work – or at least out
of a paycheque – until he comes down from his tantrum and goes to jail for all
his “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
My
point is that I continue to be astonished at the amount of power wielded by one
individual – the President of the United States. I guess the Founding Fathers
should have had a few Founding Mothers there too, to try and calm down their
baser instincts.
“Now
Thomas, I hope you don’t think you’re going to the constitution hearings
dressed like that, and I hope you and your cronies don’t think the president
should be answerable to no one but his conscience. After all, some day this
vast country may have a president who doesn’t have one.
“No,
the best idea would be that the wives have a veto over everything. Just think,
if Hillary Clinton had had some input on whether Monica Lewinsky should be
hired as her husband Bill’s intern, guess what? Monica would have quickly been
transferred to keeping the books at the United Fruit Company’s Brazil head
office.”
Joking
aside, there is one good thing coming out of the Donald Trump era, and that is
he has given Americans and people around the world a brand new word, a
neologism. The adjective ‘Trumpian’ refers to someone who is as lazy as a cut
cat, who only wears new suits and yard-long ties, who has no conscience (as I
said), who speaks long before he thinks – if he ever does think - and whose
first and last thoughts of the day are about himself.
If
there is one thing people should be grateful for, it’s that he can’t order
wholesale slaughter of human beings – as in Hitler and Stalin – because
Congress, even the spineless Republicans, would object. Maybe.
-end-
