Mary Jane sales down (Dec 11)

NOTES FROM THE SCOTCH COLONY

Eliminating the competition

                                    by Robert LaFrance

            As I write these beautifully constructed paragraphs, it is snowing like mad, as if try to make up for snow-less months like June and July. It’s a school storm day, so I am sure all educators are champing at the bit and wanting to get back in the classroom tomorrow in front of those fresh faces eager to learn English grammar and calculus.

            Or maybe not. I was just uptown to get a few groceries and saw several teachers in the food (or other) supply stores – one of each side of Andover – who didn’t look the least bit morose. Odd about that. I saw two carpenters who wouldn’t be able to continue shingling a roof in Aroostook because of the predicted storm and they looked as if they would rather be working than spending money on bread and cheese.

            It’s been an odd winter so far, and it’s not even officially winter which I think begins December 22. I looked it up, or tried to, on the provincial government website(s) but the InterWeb kept sending me in circles, a metaphor of government itself, so I never did find out when winter starts so I can get out my snow scoops and clean out the banks in front of the garage. I haven’t been able to get the cars out since that first storm in late August because I understand that it’s illegal to use a snow scoop until winter is officially here.

            I must look up that law on the government’s website.

                                                *******************

            Not sure if anyone else has noticed, but while it may not be officially winter, it certainly is officially Christmas season, and with it, the season of Christmas music EVERYWHERE.

            My wife and I went Christmas shopping last week and have deemed that trip a huge success. We do not often, like never, cross the border into the U.S. of A., so we have been left to shop in the mere 10,000 stores in Grand Falls, Woodstock, Fredericton and all points on the compass. I can report that we have almost finished Christmas shopping except for buying gifts for each other, all cousins, inlaws and outlaws, aunts and uncles, our kids and grandchild. Other than that we’re all set.

            One of the stores we have avoided so far is the biggest one – by far – of them all. I refer to that place usually called ‘Online’ – or the Internet. I tried that once and ended up buying a 1956 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud. However, a credit check by the seller revealed that I didn’t have enough money to buy the car’s ashtray – if Rolls Royces even have ashtrays.

            The police and I are in discussion about the whole matter. It may be resolved by (great word!) spring.

            Back to Christmas shopping, I have many objections to the whole idea, including Black Friday and Pale Thursday, but my most serious one is about the so-called music that wafts through every store except, curiously, Cannabis NB, not that I have been there. I hear reports.

            I can only assume that the stores have all conferred about the music and have hired one or more consultants (who must have been former Chilean secret police alumni  or Komodo Dragons) to pick out the music. On Monday morning we were in the store called Rossi’s and the so-called music almost drove me screaming and mumbling – if it’s possible to do both at the some time - out into the parking lot. It was a mixture of rap, a punctured accordion’s squeak, and the backfiring of an old Farmall tractor as it hauls a manure spreader. I didn’t like it, in case you didn’t get that.

            The other stores were much better, but I wrapped a huge scarf around my head and so my ears were able pick up only a dull roar. It wasn’t Heaven but slightly farther away from Hell.

            Going back for a moment to the subject of Cannabis NB, I saw on last evening’s CBC-TV news that the police had closed down several illegal cannabis outlets and executed the managers and owners. One thought occurred to me right away. We have been hearing for many weeks that Cannabis NB has finished in the red its first two years of operation and the government wants to sell it, but my question would be – and is – this: didn’t it occur to anyone before that one way a business makes money is by eliminating the competition?

            Therefore, wouldn’t the obvious course of action be to close down all illegal cannabis shops? The government had the means to do this all along, so why did it take two years to figure it out?

            Stupid question, wasn’t it?

                                                ******************

            I will close this brilliantly written column with a tribute to one segment of our society that doesn’t get a lot of praise. I refer to teenage girls who go to school, do homework, play sports and put up with whatever they must.

            Here’s why. Around noon hour in Andover I see them walking along the street and wearing their stylish jeans with all hell torn out of them so that, even on the coldest days, the girls’ bare flesh is exposed to Canada’s winter weather. Sitting near Nissens’ Market inside my idling Toyota one day last week, I was warm and cosy when a bevy of these girls walked by. They weren’t even shivering although it was –5ºC outside, with a significant breeze.

            A few metres behind was a group of boys the same age. They were bundled in hoodies and other clothes that weren’t torn to shreds. They looked cold.

            Teenage girls, I salute you! You’re a lot tougher than I am!
                                              end