DIARY
The
Rules of life (Part 1) as we know them
by
Robert LaFrance
There are certain Rules of Life that
we all live by, and they are what might have been called, a few thousand years
ago, like about 500 BC, ‘The Law of the Medes and the Persians’. That phrase
means ‘law than can never be changed – ever’.
So it is with the Rules of Life I am
about to quantify, whatever that means. I suppose in some ways the R of R are
similar to Murphy’s Law; anything that can go wrong, will.
Think first of the item that takes
you from Point A to Point – if you are lucky. The automobile in its many kinds
and colours comes to mind right away, with a quick second place on the same
subject The Automobile Warranty.
Say you go out and buy a new car and
it comes with a warranty that is good for four years or 90,000 kilometres,
whichever comes first. You are driving from Bristol to Arthurette and your
odometer tells you that your warranty is going to run out at the old Caldwell
place, below Red Rapids on Highway 109. So it turns over 90,000 just as you
enter Red Rapids flat.
You will probably not reach McNeil’s
General Store at the upper end of the flat, so you might as well shut off the
car now. Your warranty just ran out, so within the next little while the car
will fall apart, piece by piece. If you try to make it back to Bristol, your
car is doomed. That’s a Rule of Life.
One more rule involving driving and
vehicles. If there is a major pothole in a road, that pothole will be,
logically enough, in your driving lane (where everybody drives) and it will be
exactly in a shadow. So you are driving along in your usual blissful state and
your car’s right front wheel hits this crevice and you say: “&^%$#^%$*! That’s
a rule of life, no matter how devoutly religious you are.
Rule #3 deals with gastronomy, and
that has nothing to do with looking at stars and planets. It’s about grub going
into our guts. The rule states: “NEVER go grocery shopping when you are
hungry!” Once in a while I forget that rule and I pay dearly. Three days ago,
for example, I went into the local grocery store and I did not eat breakfast
before getting in the car (which has a warranty) and going to the grocery store
whose owners are so wealthy already that that put out TWO bags of garbage each
week.
They are wealthier now by far. The
cashier had to call three grocery bag carriers to help me get my stuff to the
car. I wished I had brought a trailer. The bill came to $489.02. I had only
gone in to buy some eggs and canned soup. I finally stopped shopping when I saw
myself putting canned aniseed flavoured chickpeas in my third cart.
This next Rule of Life is not really
for me, but for a certain nameless friend (Richard LaFrance, no relation and
known as Flug). Here it is: “Never get a tattoo with a loved one’s name on it,
because she might not always be your loved one and you know what Hell hath no
fury like.”
Flug, back about three wives ago,
thought he was in love with this Paraguayan lady named Dulcie who was doing a
bartender exchange course at the Club down the road. (Our regular bartender,
Freddy, had decided he wanted to see South America.)
Flug went to Old Home Week in
Woodstock and just by the gate was a tattoo artist named Wanda who tattooed
‘Dulcie’ on Flug’s limb. Well, unfortunately, by the time Wanda had tattooed
the letter ‘e’ those two were in love. A match made in Winnipeg. Flug had a
problem.
Here’s a Rule of Life that can be
covered by my grandfather, Muff LaFrance’s, one rule: “If you see a chance to
keep your mouth shut, take it.”
I was in town last week when my
friend Irvine introduced me to a guy named Leonard Glinn from Tilley. I was
quite astonished that Leonard looked strikingly like my acquaintance Glenn
Patterlick, also from Tilley. Of course I couldn’t just shut up as Grampy would
have, but said that out loud. There was an uncomfortable silence, then Leonard
said he had to go. Irvine said: “He looks like Glenn for a reason, you
wheelwrench. He was born while his mother’s husband was in the Korean War – for
two years before Leonard was born.” Open mouth, change feet.-end-
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