It’s
easy to see I need a hobby
by
Robert LaFrance
At times I don’t have enough to do.
Sitting in my favourite and most
comfortable chair and sipping on a toddy of hot chocolate, lemonade and puréed
blueberries, I started imagining what things would sound like if a person from
1968 (George) had a conversation with a person from 2014 (Cody).
George: You know, I haven’t listened
to my 8-track for at least a week…
Cody: What?
George: My 8-track, I said I hadn’t
listened to it for a week. Are you deaf?
Cody: That’s not politically correct
you know, to say ‘deaf’. It’s hearing impaired. You don’t want to insult people
do you?
George: You mean deaf people would
be insulted if I said they were deaf? They wouldn't hear me, would they?
Cody: That’s right, and you must not
use words like crippled, and be a little more sensitive about smoking around
non-smokers.
George: (Lighting an Export A
cigarette) What’s wrong with smoking? Next thing you know, people won’t want
you to smoke in their houses. Crazy! You people in 2014 sure are nutcakes. I
would get my camera and take a picture of all the no smoking signs, but I’m all
out of film.
Cody: What’s film? Well, anyway, I
hate to end this fascinating conversation, but I’m going out to look at new
cars. The warranty is running out on our Toyota and we have to get a new one.
The salesperson is waiting.
George: How much do cars cost for
you guys in 2014? Inflation’s taking hold here in 1968 and the price of a new
Impala is up to $3200…what’s a Toyota? What's a warranty?
Cody: Thirty-two hundred dollars?
That wouldn’t buy the ashtray on a new full-size Chevvy. A bottom of the line
Toyota car is $18,000 and if you want to get a hybrid or something like that,
you’re talking over $30,000. A pickup truck – here’s a photo – is forty or
fifty thousand.
George: Dollars?
Cody: Dollars. And if you parked one
of today’s trucks alongside a truck you might drive in 1968 it would be three
times as big.
George: Yeah, but it would carry
three times the load on the back. Wouldn’t it?
Cody: It would not. So-called pickup
trucks today – big as a gravel truck was in 1968 – have about two thirds the
cargo space of my old 1971 GMC halfton. By the way, nobody does their own
mechanic work in 2014. We have to take our cars and trucks to ‘automotive
technicians’. The last mechanic work I did was putting windshield washer fluid
in the tank by the motor. At least I think that was a motor; it’s all covered.
George: Where did the mechanics all
go? Are there still plumbers and carpenters? I suppose there’s a different name
for electricians now. I’ll tell you something: If I was Chairman of the world,
I –
Cody: We don’t say chairman any
more. It’s chairperson or just ‘chair’. We talk to furniture now and still
think we’re sane. I got an email the other day “From the desk of so-and-so…”
George: Whadya mean, he-male?
Cody: No, it’s EMAIL. I write a
letter on my computer keyboard and a second later my cousin in Vancouver reads
it. I know, you’re thinking all I have to do is pick up my cellphone or if I
wanted I could text her. I don’t –
George: Are you saying you’re in
jail? They let you have a phone in your cell? And what’s that you said about
sexing your cousin over the phone? No wonder you’re in jail. It’s a gay life
you lead there in 2014.
Cody: Ahem…George, the word ‘gay’
has a different meaning now than it did in 1968; a lot of
things are different. People pay extra for groceries that have Omega 3 in them,
or probiotics, the price of gas is up to $1.30 –
George: A dollar thirty a gallon!
What kind of a salary do you make – when you’re not in jail - to afford that?
And what’s Omega 3? A spaceship? Next you’ll be telling me that banks charge
the customers for keeping their money even though the banks invest that money
and make interest. I worked in a bank in Hamilton, so I know about banks.
Cody: Let’s go back to the price of
gas, George. It’s $1.30 a LITRE. So that would be…let me see, multiply by 4.55,
subtract 27, take the square root of 91 and that would be…a lot. (I’m better at
geography than math.) And banks, well they charge you for even breathing in
their branch, mainly because they take the cost of oxygen out of the tellers’
salaries. And if it’s cold outside, say minus 20 Celsius, They charge –
George: What kind of an animal is a
Celsius? Is it like one of them little naugas that people make naugahyde
furniture out of?
Cody: (After checking a text message
on his cellphone) I better get going, George. I’d call the Toyota place, but
I’m running out of daytime minutes. Bye now.
George: (To himself) I think I’ll
stay here in the Sixties. There’s talk about legalizing marijuana.
-end-
No comments:
Post a Comment