It’s about time to clean house
by Robert LaFrance
I have a request
to make of all the faithful and long suffering readers of this column. Would
you go to your purse, your coat, or behind the toaster and find the key ring
you use most often?
Ready? Let’s
begin, as they say in those helpful computer ‘help’ videos.
The object of
this exercise is to check each of the keys or other things on that so-called
key ring and see (1) what it is supposed to open, (2) if you can actually open
something with it, or (3) if you have a vague idea what it even represents.
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
Since I’m here
and you’re there, let’s start with my own key ring. First, I weighed it.
Approximately two and a half kilograms.
A brass coloured
key was to open my henhouse door. True, we haven’t had hens since my son, now
in college, was in kindergarten, and the door is lying in my orchard where it
covers my tiller in winter, but at least I recognized the key. I took it off
the ring; it ‘clanged’ when I threw it in the empty 48-ounce juice can. A good
start.
The next key had
GM on its side, but I knew it wasn’t for our 2004 Buick Century. The last time
we had another General Motors vehicle was in 1999 when I gave away our 1983 Chevy
Cavalier on a trade-in for our Plymouth Voyager van. Into the can for that key.
Clang.
And so it went
until I came across a safety deposit box key. I left that on the ring because I
knew that the SDB contained several coins, especially from Expo ’67. Their face
value, I knew, was in the $35 range, but after all this time they were worth MUCH more, probably about $37. I could have gained $2 in appreciation from
depositing $100,000 in a bank for a year, unless service charges had cleaned it
out completely. I resolved to go get the coins and close the SDB.
Making a long
story somewhat shorter, within an hour I had the juice can full of useless keys and my key
ring now weighed 76 grams. It felt good to get rid of that useless stuff.
“What are you
doing?” asked my wife as she reached for her rolling pin. “Why are you putting
that can of useless keys in the cupboard?”
“Well…they could
come in handy sometime." It was all a blur after that. As my life flashed before my eyes I was saying to her: “Your key ring is next!”
Two
days earlier she had passed me her key ring to start her Toyota and I had
suffered a hernia.
*************************
Segueing quickly
to the subject of politics (the KEY to our well-being, get it?) I note that
this week Justin Trudeau will unveil his cabinet so we can judge his carpentry
skills, and the defeated Tories and NDP folks will meet to lick their wounds.
I have noticed
that, in each of the last two cases, they are meeting in bars. The ex-Cons and
the NDPeers could both meet in the same bar, and that would save some trouble.
Joking aside,
everybody I have spoken to says that the NDP were demolished, as were the
ex-Cons. I can’t agree. The NDPeers have 44 seats, which is very good for a
third party, but they lost many seats in Quebec because of Harper’s racist campaigning. Well, guess what?
The only reason the NDP had so many Quebec seats in 2011 was because the late Jack Layton had charmed them; it was a one-off one time
phenomenon. (I almost said ‘phenomena’ because so many news readers and
commentators use this plural word, like ‘criteria’ when they need a singular
one).
The ex-Cons have
99 seats which is a very large number, and I wonder if anyone else noticed that
99 + 44 = 196, more than Trudeau has. (I never was much good at adding.)
Canadians are
happy though, except Uncle Herbie who has a sore finger and gout, because they
got rid of The Wicked Warlock of Calgary. Even if he has resigned as the
ex-Cons’ leader he’s still an MP though. Maybe the party will go back to being
the Progressive Conservatives.
I heard a rumour
yesterday that our former Tobique-Mactaquac MP, Mike Allen, is ‘considering’ a
run to lead the provincial Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick. The
provincial Liberals have made quite a few mistakes in the first part of their
reign, so maybe that will put them into thinking mode. As a neutral, I’m
looking forward to some good skirmishes.
-end-
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