Doctor says 'go for a wok'

Who is front-runner in the 2012 Tacky Awards race? 

                        by Robert LaFrance

            Here are some other observations in this post-holiday, post-Valentine’s Day time of year. Some of them make sense too, for a change.

            My old friend Wung Yu from Shantung, China—we worked together in several Vancouver post offices back in the 1970s—stopped by Tuesday to say hello. He was on his way to Nova Scotia for the annual Winter Wok-Fest in Dartmouth, that well-known centre of oriental culture. He was talking about a ‘cementhead’ he works with now. This chap is Chinese but, believe me, cementhead-ism transcends every race, creed, and body type.

Wung Yu explained: “Boy Lung—that’s his name—was telling me that his doctor ‘suggested’ he lose weight and so he should go for a walk every day. I was visiting Cementhead two days ago and he showed me the 47 woks in his apartment. ‘The doctor said I had to go for one every day,’ he told me.” Wung Yu said he didn’t have the heart to tell him that the doctor’s word was spelled w-a-l-k. Many of us spend a certain number of hours every week in what I call ‘stunned mode’ but apparently Boy Lung has his dial set on ‘permanent press’.

            My neighbours from down the road (turn right at the corner, seven houses up on the right) have been in Canada for decades, but one can still catch that English accent—Cornish, actually—in their speech. I was taking a walk (not a wok) the other day past their house when I heard them having what I assumed was some sort of gardening argument, even though it was February. She called him a rake and he called her a hoe. It’s easy to hear words wrongly though, when the speaker has an accent. It reminded me of my teenage years when my math teacher, who hailed from Liverpool—not Nova Scotia—mentioned that she was planning to form ‘a sextet’. You can imagine the randy thoughts that occurred to one whom puberty was pummelling nearly to death.

            We are slowly being ‘dumbed down’ even as we sit at our computers or in our cars. I marvelled at this: the day I bought this Acer, when I put an earphone cord into the computer, a sign came up. “Information: You have just plugged in an audio device”. It also told me when I unplugged it. Many times I have tried to imagine a situation where I wouldn’t know that I had plugged in earphones. Burglars? If they got by the dog, would they head for my office and plug in my earphones? Is the Pope jewish? Then there is that wonderful flashing sign on my Toyota’s dash, the one that tells me, after my tires have spun, that the road is slippery. I would say at that point if the driver doesn’t know the road is slippery, he or she should stay home and watch The Secret Edge of Tomorrow’s ‘General Hospital Storm’ or ‘As the Stomach Turns’. Soap operas are slippery enough themselves, but at least you don’t end up in the ditch unless you sip on too much lemonade while watching Doctor and Nurse have an affair behind the anaesthesia machine that has quit working and hasn’t been replaced.

            I often watch shows that feature opinions from ‘experts’ who are supposed to know what they are talking about. Television networks keep going back to the same people who were saying in 2007 that we could look forward to a long period of prosperity. In any other field of endeavour they would be fired, disgraced, and horsewhipped, but there they are, still prognosticating from within their $2100 Pierre Sandini suits. On Saturday evening I tuned in to a show that boasted two famous economists who each had a surefire way of ending the quasi-recession. The first one, a woman from New York, said people should spend their money and get the economy moving. The other, a person of the male persuasion from Los Angeles, said we all should save, save, so we could have money to buy things later on and get the economy moving.

            Just when you thought you’d seen everything tacky, an American company comes along with a coin to commemorate the killing of Osama bin Laden. I can see a coin or a medallion to commemorate a great military victory (like the Canadiens shutting out the Leafs in a playoff game or vice versa) or in tribute to a great scientist or philanthropist, like Joseph Stalin, but to honour the slaughter of a person by a hit squad, well that’s a bit far off the mark. However, it may win a Tacky Award, so you have to look on the bright side.

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