She was British, steeped in all things proper and spoke with an upper crust accent. Although only 30, she was matronly, very particular in her ways and repressed because of it. She was in Canada for her brother's wedding. He was a bit of a roué and was marrying into a bohemian family.
She flew in from London and was picked up at the airport by the bride's ragamuffin brother, Felix, who within the first minute of her being in the car, offered her a joint. She refused but he toked all the way to the hotel. He insisted on helping her with her luggage and when he entered the room, he flopped down on her bed, flipped on the TV and channel surfed. This was not normal and she politely told him to scram. Felix giggled, jumped up and left.
At the rehearsal dinner, the father of the bride hit on her. She acted demur and embarrassed but was really mad at the uncouthness of this family.
The day of the wedding, Felix picked her up at the hotel wearing a tuxedo T-shirt and grubby jeans. On the way to the church he sparked up and when she again refused the pot, he blew the smoke in her direction hoping to give her a contact high.
The wedding was held outdoors in the church parking lot as the couple wanted to get married in nature but the clergyman wasn't willing to go into the woods "and maybe get ticks and Lyme disease", so they compromised on the parking lot. The nuptials were written by the bride and groom and among other things, promised each other to have a sexually open marriage and do lots of drugs together.
At the reception, she was again hit on by the father of the bride. He dragged her onto the dance floor and put his hands on her rear. She removed them. He put one on her breast. She stepped back. He suggested it might be hot to see her naked and uninhibited, thrashing about on his bed calling out his name. It's Fred. My name is Fred, he said. This was too much. She sought out her brother.
"Your new family is debauched."
"I know."
"How did you and I turn out to be so different?"
"Can't say. But listen, you're in Canada, far away from home. No one knows you here. You're at a party. You could let yourself go, get drunk, smoke dope, have a fling. Mum will never know. English royalty will never know. It'll just be your little secret."
"I suppose you're right."
"Can I get you some champagne?"
"Sure, why not."
"Wait here. You haven't even met my bride yet! She thinks you're hot, in a repressed sort of way. Say, have you ever had sex with a woman?"
"Oh dear."
A day later she is flying back to London. She has now had sex with a woman, got high with Felix and successfully fended off the bride's father all weekend. She even left behind a pair of her very best knickers for Felix as he told her of his fetish for panties. She looks out the window at the coast of England. It's now time to slip back into her regular life of poshness and civility; to become who she was before; who she's always been. "Damn," she said out loud.
May 2, 2018
The day had been mundane. I was mindlessly filling up the truck at a gas station across from a city park. Walking through the park were two unattended dogs, a golden retriever and an Alaskan malamute. They looked like best buddies. It was such an evocative sight as at one time, my wife and I also had a golden retriever and an Alaskan malamute. Pumping 87 octane, I am in reverie, the day is mundane no more.
-- Why thank you, Mr. Bertrand. It's a lovely plate. I'm honoured, but...
-- But what?
-- I'm afraid Mrs. Bertrand looks a little peeved.
-- Yes, it's one of her good plates, but I want you to have it. Here.
-- That's very generous of you, Mr. Bertrand, but...
-- But what, Elmore?! Is it Mrs. Bertrand's evil eye? God, you're such a fearful creature. Don't worry about her, I'll buy her more plates. I have lots of money. People say I look like a banker. I'm twenty years older than her, you know. Take the frickin' plate.
-- It's just, well, it's not her, Mr. Bertrand, it's that other fellow. Come on, can't you see how he's ogling my plate? He clearly covets it. I...I don't trust him.
-- You're right to be cautious, Elmore. He looks like a dangerous man. 'Course, lots of people say I look like a banker. What can you do? Trust me, Elmore, I haven't given plates to anybody else.
-- Ok then, Mr. Bertrand, I shall cherish this plate to my dying day...I guess.
-- That's why I'm giving it to you, Elmore.
-- But what about this other fellow?
-- If he beats the stink out of you and steals your plate, what can I do?
-- But...
-- But what, Elmore?
-- But...
May 5, 2018
You meet your blind date. You immediately look her up and down and while doing that, she is assessing your intelligence, maturity and the kind of car you drove up in. You stare at her breasts. She is fixated by a stain on your shirt. Your eyes wander down her body like a fireman slowly assessing a building's temperature. She wonders if you've ever had a girlfriend, how you treated her, who broke up with whom. Her open toed sandals drive you crazy with lust. In her head she puts her first name and your last name together to see if it sounds okay. You tell her how sexy she looks and how you're having a hard time keeping your hands to yourself, lol. She half smiles and says sotto voce, Strike one.
May 6, 2018
Roses are red
Violets are blue
There are only three things in life that mean anything
Only three
Pardon? What are they? Well I'm sorry that you wanted more poem but there isn't any more poem. Can I not have a little mystery in my art? I am not a robot! Tee hee.
May 7, 2018
You do understand that everything is up to you, right? You make your own decisions, you have your own beliefs, you possess your own unique world view. Knowing that, why would you abdicate responsibility for anything you have done or will do? When you own it, you control it. And all you have to do is take responsibility for what you're already doing. That's tidy.
May 9, 2018
Jeez, the dandruff coming off this guy's head was unbelievable. He was a human snow globe, perpetually shrouded in a mist of white flakes. Either he was oblivious to his cascading dead skin, or he was aware of it and didn't care. Regardless, it was disgusting. I think I speak for everyone when I say that this guy should only be allowed out at night when his dandruff is harder to see and fewer people are about. And he has to clean up after himself. And he has to wear a hat. And he has to be back home by sunrise, vampire style. Come on, who's with me!
May 10, 2018
Keynote speaker at a tech conference:
The Internet is a cesspool. It's the worst of humanity. It's a shit box of trolls, scammers, heathens, money grubbers and the pathetic. My boss wants me to "explore it more in depth." My wife asks me why I'm so angry all the time. Well, I'm done with it. I'm getting my life back. The Internet can kiss my ass goodbye.
The conference was abuzz with this bombshell! Nerds a twittering! Laptops alight! Smartphones ablaze! Did you hear?! Did you hear?! It was so cute.
May 12, 2018
Overheard two young women at the movies.
-- Ok, I think the best cover I have ever heard is k.d. lang doing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. No wait, maybe it's Emmylou Harris singing Springsteen's Racing In The Streets. Oh, but I really love the way Bonnie Raitt sings John Prine's Angel From Montgomery. I don't know, they're all so good! What about you? What's your favorite cover song?
-- The best cover ever made is Disturbed doing Paul Simon's The Sound Of Silence.
-- Disturbed? Who's that?
-- They're a metal band.
-- And they sing a Paul Simon song? You're pulling my leg, right?
-- They don't just sing it, they blow the doors off it. It is absolutely the best cover ever made.
-- What? That's nuts. I don't believe you.
She pulls out her phone and brings up the YouTube video. And you know what? She is absolutely right. Disturbed singing The Sounds Of Silence is the best cover I have ever heard. Judge for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4
Meet the Abigail sisters. Jeannie, sitting, is eleven. She likes candy, their cat, Aurora, and playing Clue. Her sister Chloe, standing, is 42 and a mother of three illegitimate children from three different fathers. Chloe smokes four packs a day, drinks like a fish and hasn't yet had the heart to tell Jeannie that she is her daughter, not her sister.
May 14, 2018
They were yelling at each other in public. He called her a frigid bitch. She retorted that he was just an oversexed weirdo with upsetting ideas. He attacked her family as indolent saps and inbred losers. She told him that his mother was a pitiful excuse of a human being and that the only thing keeping her from a mental institution was the authorities had yet to find out about her. They yelled for several more minutes and in the end they went their separate ways. A boy and a girl, enacting in public the vicissitudes of life. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
May 15, 2018
She was known for her passion and loyalty. He was a user with no qualms about the feelings of others. They met, dated, married and divorced. Now she is less passionate about everything and sees loyalty as a misplaced trait. He is still a user with no qualms about the feelings of others.
May 17, 2018
So a baseball player vents his frustration, turns his back on his brethren and gets in trouble for it. He apologizes the next day in a sincere, heartfelt manner. He fully explains his reasons for saying what he did and those reasons are both self-deprecating and rational. To some, he seems more human because of the debacle. To others, it`s all a show and for them his denigrations shall not go quietly into the good night. Holding on or letting go, neither is right and neither is wrong.
May 18, 2018
First, America suffers through way too many years of Bush the moron. Now they have to endure Trump the buffoon. Just imagine what future historians will say when they look back at these two charlatans. My guess is it'll be something like, America had lost its goddamn mind.
May 20, 2018
Downtown at a red light a woman on a sport bike pulls up next to me and says, Follow me. The light changes green and she pulls ahead. I followed her for a block but I had my own agenda to adhere to so I turned at the next corner to complete my errands. I went to the bank. I went to the post office and as I was getting into my truck to head home, motorcycle girl pulls up.
-- Hey, why didn't you follow me?
-- Follow you where?
-- That's what you would have found out if you had followed me.
I shrugged. She continued.
-- Dude, how many pretty girls on motorcycles have ever asked you to follow them?
-- You were my first.
-- And yet you let the opportunity go to waste. You're either bold, stupid or gay.
I shrugged again.
-- Gay. Definitely gay.
She shook her head like she couldn't believe her luck, revved up her bike and pulled away.
Ok, is it just me or does stuff like this happen to other people?
May 21, 2018
Our 37.5 acre property is a wildlife haven. With all the subdivisions and houses going up around here, these animals are losing large swaths of habitat. Our place is becoming a refuge of sort. This is a win-win. We adore seeing all the wildlife and they love having a place to live.
May 22, 2018
I'm eating Boston Cream Pie for breakfast. Umm. I have often talked of my love for unconventional breakfast foods such as cold pizza and cake. It's obvious their deliciousness alone warrants inclusion onto the list of "acceptable" breakfast foods, something I have exhorted the world's top nutritionists about time and time again, but they have thus far shown a united resistance to my radical, innovative and delectable ideas. Sigh. Once again, ahead of the curve.
May 23, 2018
If the idea of reincarnation is real and you live multiple lifetimes, this implies that at some point there will be a last life, yes? In your final go round on Earth, what would you like that life to be? Because it could be a slow, leisurely one filled with love and contentment, or a hard scrabble life of challenge as a final testing of yourself, or perhaps you want a life of selflessness dedicated to giving back to others. At that point you should be able to sculpt a kind of preferred existence. So, what kind of life would you like to live the last time around?
Don't be silly, it'll fit in perfectly with the environment.
It won't stand out at all.
You'll hardly know it's there.
It does not look like a spaceship.
A sore thumb? Are you kidding me?
It is NOT a UFO.
You're all focusing on the negative. See how it makes the picture postcard effect even more picture postcardy?
What do you mean you can't find any furniture to fit the round walls?
How to clean the windows on the outside? How should I know?!
It does not look like a giant mushroom.
It does not look like a spaceship.
It does not look out of place.
You people are just being mean.
May 26, 2018
I got an e-mail from a real estate company in California wanting to know if we wanted to sell our British Columbia property. Weird, no? I called the number in the signature and an agent said she was located in San Diego and wanted to buy our acreage in Canada. I said that made no sense and could she please explain herself. She couldn't. She couldn't tell me how she knew of our place, how she got my name and e-mail address or why she wanted to buy it. I asked her what she was willing to pay. She lowballed me. I asked her how much her place was worth in San Diego because maybe I wanted to buy her house. She said that was ridiculous. Her house wasn't for sale. Precisely, I said, and hung up.
May 27, 2018
As he brags so often that he is only saying what the people are thinking, perhaps he ought to hear what the people are really thinking: Trump is a buffoon. An American embarrassment. A maggot in a red hat. A lying fool. A profoundly ignorant man. A racist, hateful punk. A bum. A willfully ignorant bum. A walking multiple sexual harasser. A crass and greedy man so out of his depth that all he can do is lie and bluster hoping no one calls him on his bullshit and ignorance. Of course, the people are thinking and saying a lot more, but that's the gist.
May 28, 2018
LETTER OF THE MONTH
Hey you,
Why you hate Trump?
Signed,
Conservative forever
Dear Con,
What's not to hate? Everything about the guy is hateful - his fossilized ideas, his constant lies, his warped family, his greed, his stupidity, his racism, xenophobia and out of control ego, his policies, his Administration of losers, his fake hair, fake self, fake billionaire - jeez, what's not to hate?
May 29, 2018
They were an American couple splurging on a vacation with their best friends, a French couple. They were at a 4 star resort and spa. They got massages, took mud baths, drank mojitos at the swim up bar, sweated in the sauna and relaxed in the hot tub, where it turns out, they all contracted legionnaires' disease. Upon recovery, the Americans wanted to sue the resort, while the French couple thought that was gauche. The Americans pressured their French friends. They resisted, telling the Americans that they were being vindictive and greedy - so American. The Americans sneered at their friends' haughty Frenchness. Then the couples stopped being friends. The lawsuit went forward. Two years and a ton of money spent later, the Americans eventually received a modest sum that they blew on a Corvette and a 65 inch TV. The end. The awful end.
May 30, 2018
Overheard parents at a sporting goods store.
-- Jesus, look how expensive these skates are!
-- That's just the beginning. Then there's the helmet, sticks, pads, jersey-
-- This stick is 300 dollars! Allen, we can't afford this. Plus, he'll outgrow all this stuff in a year and we'll have to keep buying the same equipment over and over.
-- I know.
-- Well the obvious solution is to switch sports. I say hockey is out.
-- But he's a Canadian boy, Louise. They grow up revering hockey.
-- I don't care. What's a cheap sport? Who has the cheapest equipment?
-- I don't know. Probably soccer. All you need is cleats and a pair of shorts.
-- Then it's settled. Joey is going to play soccer whether he likes it or not.
-- But honey, what if he really wants to play hockey?
-- It's quite simple, Allen. If we never teach him to skate, he can't play hockey. Capish?
May 31, 2018
It drove him crazy that everybody in his family used his desktop computer. They all knew his passwords and treated his machine like it was theirs. He implemented a bunch of security strategies to prevent them from logging on, but to no avail. At his wits end, he finally arrived at a place of desperation so acute it allowed him to think outside the box, and what he came up with gave him his privacy back. He was a touch typist, but no one else in the family was. So he blacked out all the key caps on his keyboard. Brilliant, no?
