NOTES FROM THE SCOTCH COLONY
Whatdya mean, CHILD-proof?
by Robert LaFrance
My
friend and neighbour (who lives 15 kilometres away) Clyde Hainsworth hates to
take pills, but on Monday he had some kind of a dog-ail, as my late
father-in-law used to call illness, and went to see Dr. Feinstein.
The
physician prescribed something called Fender-bend – or at least that’s what
Clyde called it – so Clyde picked some up at the drugstore; as soon as he got
home the trouble started.
I
happened to be driving past his house when I heard a mighty boom that sounded
as if it had come from his front lawn. Sure enough, there was Clyde out there
in his slippers and not much else, and he carried what looked like a 12-gauge
shotgun. A bit of smoke was rolling out from the gun’s barrel.
He
pointed to the ground where little – VERY little – pieces of plastic lay amid a
scattering of white pills. “Well, I guess that child-proof pill bottle lived up
to its name. I couldn’t get it open and I tried pliers, a hammer and finally
Old Barleycorn here.” He patted the gun affectionately. He started picking the
pills out of the debris and putting them in his pocket.
It’s
true isn’t it? Those child-proof bottles, easily opened by any child over the age
of two, are almost impossible for us alleged adults to open. Whoever designed
them was clearly a member of a South American death squad. Clyde and I talked
for a while but not long since his ears were ringing and he couldn’t hear much,
but I did have a suggestion for him.
That
suggestion was the same one I advise older people to do if they acquire a
computer for the first time – get a child to show you how it operates. A month
later I again stopped by Clyde’s house to ask how things were going. I was surprised
to learn that he had taken my advice. His next pill order had shown up the day
before and he had immediately called his grandson Curly, who popped open the
container and put the pills in a butter dish. There’s always a way.
***********************
“You talk
a lot about “the good old days”, Charlotte Beamsley emailed me the other day.
“I agree that things are better nowadays, Donald Trump notwithstanding, but we
have lost a lot of words from are language and I don’t think they will ever be
back.
“When
I went to school, the word ‘gay’ meant cheerful but today you could say it
doesn’t always mean the same thing. Indeed,” she continued, “it can still mean
cheerful, but there is another meaning built in.” I thought about the word
‘indeed’ that she had used and resolved to ask my thousands of friends how many
times they had used it in the past six months. So the word ‘gay’ meaning happy
and the word ‘indeed’ that is used to emphasize things have both changed from
the good old days.
Just
for the record, I am not complaining about either change, but just pointing out
that English continues to evolve.
Take
the phrase ‘rap music’ for an example. Since there is no such thing, the whole
thing is weird. Rap is just a beat looking for some music, or you could say it
is lyrics looking for some music, but unfortunately there ain’t no music
involved.
While
I am on this rant, what’s up with television news readers saying that they had
“referenced” something when all they mean is that they referred to it, and what
happened to the word ‘affect’? These days events ‘impact’ things instead of
affecting them. On the other hand, it would sound a little strange to refer to
‘an affected wisdom tooth’.
It’s
all bewildering to me. That’s why I stay home and drink after looking longingly at the Cannibis NB store as I
drive by.
Do
you remember buying water in the good old days? Not. Remember what your
dog and cat ate? Right, they ate what you ate, but somewhere along the way they
became little icons and angels and could only exist on a diet of antibiotics
and TLC.
*****************
LaFrance
Dictionary…What is the difference between a bureaucrat and a manager?
A
bureaucrat is one whose entire life is centred around inconveniencing others to
the point where those ‘others’ are driven around the bend, or a series of
bends. A bureaucrat enjoys putting up roadblocks (I’m not talking about the
Tobique Narrows Dam here) and when he or she can reduce grown men and women to
tears of frustration that is a day well spent. At that point the bureaucrat
ticks off another day on the way to its pension. Notice I did not say
“well-earned” pension.
A
manager likes to have things work correctly and makes a real effort to bend the
bureaucrats under him or her to actually accomplish something. When an
immovable object meets an irresistible force what can be the only result?
Government.-end-
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