You won’t see me wearing a kilt!
by Robert LaFrance
The
2019 version of Robbie Burns Night is scheduled for Friday evening, January 25,
and Sunday afternoon, Jan. 27 and I have an important warning to issue about
that event. I will be singing.
The
good news is that I will not be singing a solo, although thousands have begged
me to do that very thing. The next good news is that, because of a shipping
error by Amazon, UPS, Purolator and others, I will not be wearing a kilt.
The
shipping error was that none of those companies would agree to ship my kilt
because they felt that the LaFrance Tartan was likely to spontaneously combust,
even though the French and the Scots have gotten along well over the years,
except for one example here in the Colony.
Moving
on, I think it is now time for me to think about New Year’s Resolutions – for
other people.
One
of the first things I would like to see is the changing of names back to their
earlier ones. One case I refer to (or ‘reference’ as CNN might say) is the New
Brunswick government department that looks after our roads and other government
infrastructure.
At
present it is called Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DTI)
which confuses people to no end. If one uses the initials of every job of every
department he would choke on alphabet soup, so quit it willya? Go back to
D.O.T. so citizens know what you’re talking about.
Suppose
you are talking about the organization that forces us to pay income tax every
year. The Canada Revenue Agency could easily be called OTGOHMSODSFG. That would
be the Outfit That Grabs Our Hard-earned Money and Sends it to Ottawa to
Disappear into the Swamps of the Federal Government.
Therefore,
QED, as my high school math teacher Graeme MacIntosh might say, we can now go
back to D.O.T. instead of DTI. The department does hundreds of other jobs,
including installing guardrails and buying their own office equipment. Then
they could be DTIIGBOE.
Now
I’ve confused myself so badly that I can’t even remember what that acronym stands
for.
******************
Last
week I finally remembered to go in to the pharmacy and get a flu shot so I
could be sick with the flu for a while and after I recovered to the physical
wreck you see before you I wondered why it wouldn’t be possible to get a
vaccine against other ailments, referring to (referencing) some of the annoying
ways people act. (Of course, being perfect, I know I never annoy others.)
Tailgating
for example. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were some kind of injection one
could bestow on these drivers that would make them smarten up? On my way uptown
that day, I was driving 70 km/hr on the slippery road at the upper end of the
Kilburn Flat and there was not a vehicle in sight in my rear view mirrors. I
swear on the book Fifty Shades of Grey that I didn’t drive any more than
half a kilometre before a Blue Chevvy was right on my rear bumper as if wanting
to give it some kind of massage. I slowed down very gently so she would pass
but the only result was that she got even closer. There was plenty of room to
pass but no room for me to pull over.
Finally
the Chevvy went by and the driver held up a digit, one usually found in the
middle of one’s hand, to indicate her thanks for my courtesy.
Just
think if there had been a vaccine, preferably delivered by laser, that would
result in that driver acquiring at least part of a brain, so that I could drive
to town at a legal and reasonable speed?
Once
I got back home and my arm started hurting, I thought about some other
conditions that were crying in their need of a vaccine, preferable a
retroactive one. Just think if a medical person could give Donald Trump a
needle and have him magically transformed from being a 5-year-old child to a
responsible adult.
Oh,
never mind. We can’t ask for miracles.
*********************
Closer
to home than Washington, D.C., I notice that the NB Minister of Education,
Dominic Cardy, has promised to do something about the large number of storm
days for our province’s fresh-faced, eager to learn students. However, short of
legislating against storms themselves, I can’t figure out what he thinks may be
a solution to the problem.
Having
the students make up time on Saturdays has been tried and found wanting, making
the school days longer has been mooted, keeping school in later in June as well
(oh yeah! Students and teachers would love that!), and various other fixes have
been tried.
Hey,
it’s winter and it’s New Brunswick. Unless we can move the whole place to
Victoria, BC, just behind the Empress Hotel, there ain’t no solution unless all
lessons are put on the Internet. Good luck D. Cardy.-end-
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