Like a 98-year-old guy in a harem
by
Robert LaFrance
My friend Flug (Richard LaFrance,
not related) was railing on last evening at the club about the uselessness of
meetings.
He’s a member of the Quadra-County
Council for Esoteric Doldrums or some such organization, and the twelve
members, every month or so, decide the need to meet is overwhelming. They
always meet at the club and always when the bar is open, which may tell you
something right there.
“I have the minutes of every meeting
we’ve had since March of 2012,” he told me, “and I would say
that during that time we have accomplished exactly zero. Just reading the
minutes tells me that every motion that anybody ever made was voted down by the
rest, including those whose round it was next. The only contribution we have
made to the economy of this area is the tax money we have paid on all that
lemonade.”
As he went on, expanding on this
theme, I listened attentively, meanwhile thinking about what colour I should
paint my office walls, whether to wear my grey shirt with my kilt, and whether buying oil stocks would be a good move right
now. (I decided to wait.)
“And in conclusion,” he said, after
what seemed like a month, “I have decided
that I am now going to waste my time doing something other than going to
these meetings. I have decided to resign the Quadra-County Council for Esoteric
Doldrums and form a group called DWM Ltd.”
“And the meaning of the acronym
DWM?” I asked.
“Down With Meetings,” he answered.
“We will meet every Saturday afternoon down at the club.”
*****************************
Even though I was just a kid in the
1950s, I remember the Communist Scares of the time, particularly those coming
from the U.S.A., the land of the free etc. (Free if you agree with everybody
else.)
One phrase I particularly remember
is “A card carrying member of the Communist Party”. Apparently being a member
of the party wasn’t anywhere near as much a sin as carrying a card to proclaim
it. I often pictured a chap trying to persuade the police or some other
authority figure that he was indeed a Communist and their ignoring him because
he wasn’t carrying a card. “Oh, come on guys! I’m a lousy Commie; I just don’t
happen to have my card today!”
This is all leading up to this: ask
yourself how many cards you are carry around in your wallet or purse. My wallet
is approximately the same thickness as a politician’s skin although the only
thing in it is a lonely five-dollar bill and 87 cards, none of them a Communist
Party membership one.
I go into the drug store to buy a
toothbrush and before I get out of there I have to produce an Air Miles card, a
credit card, a store card, and seven pieces of ID plus a card to show that I
have more cards at home including a card that allows me to own a dog. A few
minutes later I am at the grocery store where I must produce approximately 41 cards before I can buy a can of soup or a
bar of soap.
The upside of this all is that,
although I’ve gotten a hernia from lugging around all these cards, one of them
is my Medicare card so I can have it looked after, someday.
*****************************
Don’t you really, REALLY, enjoy it
when you go into a store and they lie to you? The worst thing is, quite often
those people don’t even know they’re lying. Here’s what I’m talking about:
“We don’t have it today, but it will
be in on the truck Tuesday morning.”
They never say Monday; that’s too
early in the week. They never say Wednesday because that’s too far into the
future; same with Thursday and Friday and of course the next weekend is out of
the question.
I was thinking (watch out!) this
morning that if those clerks did happen to be telling the truth, the strain on
Canada’s transportation infrastructure would be brutal. Picture this: On
Tuesday morning – perhaps next Tuesday morning – all across the country, if
every one of those Tuesday trucks started out at the same time. It would be
bumper-to-bumper from Halifax to Chilliwack.
My point? Clerks, please quit lying.
If you don’t have the item, say so and quit promising something you can’t
deliver, like the 98-year-old guy in a harem.
-end-
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