"You disgust me"

Flug was married HOW MANY TIMES?

           by Robert LaFrance 

          Flug’s nephew Ergon came by as Flug and I were sitting on the porch and talking about that morning’s church sermon. Well, we were sitting on the porch anyway, and drinking lemonade, which is pretty much the same thing.

          “Hi ho chaps!” said Ergon, in an English accent. He had recently read a P.G. Wodehouse novel about Jeeves the butler and Bertie Wooster. “What goes on here?” We explained that what he saw was pretty much all there was.

In truth, he wasn’t there to sip on lemonade or even to casually visit. He wanted information. “Uncle Jerome,” he began, and so you finally find out my friend Flug’s real name, “since you have been married seventeen times, you must have some idea how women think. I have a question or two about a woman.”

          “First of all,” said Flug, “my name is not Jerome, at least not since 1956 when I was in grade one and my teacher called me Jerome. He only did it once, if you know what I mean. Second, the fact that I was married TWELVE times and divorced twelve times should warn you right away that I know about as much about women as I do about quantum physics. But since you’re one of my six favourite nephews, I will try and answer any questions you have.”

          Ergon said that he was still trying to figure out what Emolina Saggit had meant the previous evening when she accused him of talking about her. Flug asked him for the exact wording of her accusation.

          “Well, first I asked her for a date, and failing that, to go for a walk. It was then she said I had been talking about her. She glared at me and said: ‘You discussed me, Ergon,’ and then she spun around on her heel—as they say in British novels—and went back to her table.”

          Flug looked at me and I looked at Flug. “Another lemonade, bartender,” we said in unison. Once again we had proof that Ergon’s IQ was about that of a pasture salt lick. Flug said: “Did you ever think about writing down the words she told you, and wondering if there might be an alternate spelling to the one you’re thinking of, Ergon?”

          The rusty wheels were grinding in Ergon’s head; I could hear the sound and see the smoke. Finally, a light dawned. His face fell, as they say in North American novels. He sat down. “I think I’ll have a lemonade, Uncle Flug.”

          It’s so sad to see the mental result when close cousins marry.

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          I have pointed out before that these are interesting financial times. The rich people have been broke since 2008, the ones with jobs are now considered rich, and the poor people are still poor, but don’t feel quite as poor as they used to. The Squwater family who live down the lane, and whose average annual income is usually a minus quantity, are holding their heads high since the McConaldinis went bankrupt and had to sell their mansion on the hill.

          “We didn’t lose a dime in that 2008 financial meltdown,” commented Herbie Squwater as we both watched a soccer game at the club, “and whatever is happening now with the U.S.A. ‘credit crunch’ as they say, that doesn’t bother us a bit since we don’t have any and never did have any money. We have fallen feet first into the Social Safety Net.” Herbie hasn’t been able to work since 1981 when the tractor-trailer he was driving fell into a ravine sometimes known as the Grand Canyon. Doctors managed to put him back together but he says they had some parts left over that ‘impaired his motivation to work’.

          I have the same affliction, as you know.

          The times and the people are both ‘interesting’. I was aghast last Thursday to see a tourist bus come by Mrs. Androyd’s house and stop in her driveway where just about every middle-aged woman in the community was waiting. They got on the bus that soon sped away to the south, possibly to Minto or, by the looks of the luggage, to Fredericton airport. The fact that on the front of the bus was a sign that said ‘Fredericton Airport’ was also a clue.

          “What’s going on? Where are they going?” I enquired of Mrs. Androyd—the elder Mrs. Androyd, who was left at home. She is 99. She said they were all going to Ecuador, South America.

          “Mrs. Gannet read somewhere that people weigh one percent less at the equator, which is where Ecuador is—go figure—so, rather than eat less and exercise, they all decided to lose one percent of their body weight by going to Equador.

“You know,” she sighed, “there are times when I despair of my fellow human beings, but then I watch TV for a while. The people around here are evidently quite intelligent in comparison.” 

                                          -end-