DIARY
Dealing
with maxed-out credit cards
by
Robert LaFrance
People keep asking me what I got for
Christmas; I always answer “through it”.
That isn’t strictly true of course.
While it’s true I got through Christmas, my many bank accounts, credit cards,
debit cards, change bottles etc. are now over there lying in the corner and
whimpering.
What is it about Christmas that
makes people spend money as if they had a billion dollars in cash reserves? In
July or September I don’t stop for a meal at every restaurant I (don’t) pass,
and I don’t buy a $231 electric drill when I already have two in my workshop.
It’s as if suddenly money doesn’t matter; I just want to see smiles on the
faces of the people around me.
My wife was smiling. From her Uncle
Ted she received a brand new stainless steel rolling pin that exactly fits the
contours of my head. Ted, the former soda jerk in the 1950s and now a real
jerk, has never liked me since I put the raccoon in his Ford pickup. He found
at an office in Renous, NB, photos of my head from several different angles and
with Computer Assisted Design and a 3-D printer, had this rolling pin made by a
company in Bangladesh.
So some people are smiling after the
late holiday season, but I can only look forward to anxiety and paying off all
those maxed-out cards. I believe the total is $29,331.28.
*****************************
On another but related topic, I
recently read a newspaper description of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s
personality and was quite surprised at how similar we two are.
Each of us is married; he has two
kids and I have three, which is pretty much the same thing, and he has two
cats, Stanley and Gypsy. I hate cats, which more or less evens things out
there.
The newspaper article said that he
and his family enjoy going sliding in the Laurentian Mountains, and there you
go again. I used to slide when I was a kid, and I have twice visited the
Laurentian Mountains when I lived in Ottawa in the latter part of 1973.
Slipping into a description of PM
Harper when he’s on the job, the article said he was “the boss” and he “would
accept no criticism” once he had made a decision. Same here in this house, when
my wife is away. Harper was said to lead “an extremely busy life, both at the
office, on the government plane during a vital mission to Bermuda or the Cayman
Islands, or at home. I too am scandalously busy when I’m in my office here at
home, but I must admit I haven’t been in the Cayman Islands for some time. Too
many caymans (caymen?) there for me.
Another similarity - Stephen
Harper’s wife Laureen trained as a journalist and photographer, and I didn’t.
Enough said about that; the article described her as “personable” and anyone
who knows me has to agree that I also am personable which my dictionary defines
as “pleasing in person” and “attractive”.
*********************************
Here are a few things to think about
as the year 2015 lurches into full force:
Take the planet Uranus. There are
two ways to pronounce its name and both of them mean trouble if you’re in
elegant company. I am trying to picture a conversation when people are taking
turns saying the names of planets in our solar system. Mercury, Mars, Venus et
al are all right, and other people had already named the others (including an
argument whether Pluto is a planet or a dog) so when it came my turn there was
only Uranus left. Should I say “Your anus” or should I say “Urine-us”? I
compromised. “How about You ran us?” I said. I always was a wimp.
What is going to happen to the Ford
Motor Company in 2015? They had been relying on Toronto Mayor Rob Ford
throughout much of 2013 and 2014 – talk about brand recognition! – to sell
their products, but Rob and Doug have pretty much disappeared from sight now
that Toronto has a new mayor, John Tory. Should I buy a new Ford Focus this
year, or stick with my 1986 Gremlin?
Stephen Harper and I have been
thinking about the federal election set for this year. Will the Mike Duffy
trial have a big effect on the vote? “I don’t know, Steve,” I said yesterday
after he called me. “How should I know? Don’t bother me when I’m trying to
watch Downton Abbey.”
I was reading an Andy Rooney book
from 1989. He wrote: “While women in western society have jewels and things
hanging from their ears, they wouldn’t be caught dead hanging something from
their noses…” How things change. Today even males hang things from their noses,
lips, and other areas, and nobody is afraid of tattoos any more. Flug’s 7th
wife Windemere had one…well, let’s leave that one.
-end-
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