-- You can't say that! It's offensive. You should use developmentally disadvantaged instead.
-- Yeah?
-- Please.
-- Mister, your ignition timing is developmentally disadvantaged which is causing the spark plugs to fire later which is causing the knocking in your engine. I can un-developmentally disadvantage your timing through the distributor using a timing gun. That is, if using a gun is acceptable to you.
-- I don't think I like your attitude.
-- Ditto. You're a pain in the ass. How 'bout you remove your car from my shop and go elsewhere.
-- You're refusing to fix my car? Buddy, you may have just walked into a lawsuit!
-- Now that's retarded.
November 2, 2021
She was 6'1 and he was 5'7. She would joke to strangers that he was her younger brother. Belittled, he would quickly add, Not really, I'm her lover. This would piss her off as he was ruining her joke and basically calling her a liar in front of the very strangers they were confusing. So, does size matter?
November 3, 2021
As a young couple they never thought about marriage, babies and mortgages. So when all that happened, they were unprepared, overwhelmed and discombobulated. No longer just a young couple, they were a statistic waiting to happen.
November 4, 2021
Though Gladys' husband Benny preferred that she ride in the trunk, sometimes he would pose her by the front door so people wouldn't get alarmed.
This is ridiculous. I read your book, Write About Dogs, and was so blown away I immediately recommended it to a friend. Now my friend won't speak to me! Other than to say she has never read anything so mind messing in all her life - it's scrambled her brains, made her crazy (her words) - and she blames me! What should I do?
Signed,
Who knew you had this effect on people
Dear Who Knew,
To scramble somebody's brains...that's either the greatest review I have ever received or the poor thing was already precipitously close to the edge and my book, you know, just nudged her over (either way, a testament to a heckuva read, eh). You don't need to do anything. Something you apparently enjoyed does not have to be validated by anybody else. If it wasn't for them, it wasn't for them. But they should hardly shoot the messenger (you) or the author (me).
November 6, 2021
I was driving with a friend when a deer jumped out on the road in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and my buddy went smashing into the windshield. Angrily, he told me I should have just plowed into the deer. I told him he should have been wearing his seatbelt. Basically, that's how it started and that's how it ended.
November 8, 2021
With COVID and all, the world is a precarious place. But borders are now open. I am leaving tomorrow for a week of international travel. I shall be going many places and seeing many people. I better not get sick. See you in a week (hopefully).
November 15, 2021
I'm back. Just barely. Didn't get sick, but the airlines lost my luggage. Flights were delayed and cancelled. There are a million and one things that have taken place in my absence and require my attention. It will take me a day to figure it all out. See you tomorrow.
November 16, 2021
I'm a pretty fast typist for a two finger plonker. I saw this guy in an airport sitting with a laptop and two bandaged hands. He was typing laboriously slow with a pencil in his mouth, hitting each key precisely with his yellow no. 2, and it was so painful to watch that I went up to him and apologized if I was overstepping my bounds but I offered to type for him. He spit the pencil out and started laughing. Turns out the bandages are fake. Turns out he is an actor preparing for a role. He said he's gone for days now without using his hands in order to better sympathize with his character. I asked him if anybody else had offered him help and he said no. He asked me why I did. I told him I was Canadian. He just shook his head knowingly; it made sense; their niceness is universal; 'nuff said.
November 18, 2021
Overheard two guys on the street.
-- You were at the party too. Why isn't she accusing you?
-- 'Cause I didn't try and rape her.
-- Neither did I! I was just in the room with them.
-- You might as well have joined in because if you didn't try and stop it, you were as culpable as everyone else there.
-- Yeah, that's what her lawyer is claiming.
-- Look Peter, pay whatever price you have to and learn whatever you need to learn.
-- Man, I'm gonna lose my job over this.
-- Maybe she lost even more.
November 19, 2021
Centrifugal force is a powerful circular vortex that will engulf and overwhelm anything caught it in. There is no escape. Round and round and down you go straight into the centre of the vortex, confused, disoriented, sick from the buck passing rotations, you will eventually have no idea what is going on or why this is continuing. That pretty much describes my now 5 day combat with the airlines to get my luggage back.
November 20, 2021
A palm reader was doing a reading of an old farmer with badly grizzled hands. The palmist said she could barely make out anything as his hand had so many lines. She struggled and squinted and really tried to get a handle on his life but she couldn't. As she gave him his money back, she said, "This is the first time in 28 years that I haven't been able to read a palm." The old guy smiled and said, "That's ok, I've lived it, I know what the lines mean."
November 21, 2021
Your worth is immeasurable. It is a grace you were born with. However, self-esteem and worth can be eroded. If you consider yourself worthless, you've been undone by the very thoughts you carry about yourself. Why tear yourself down when you could be building yourself up? Capish? You are suffering at your own hands. Stop that.
November 22, 2021
Saw a guy in the grocery store defiantly not wearing a mask. As I left he was getting into his car. Plastered all over the vehicle were signs about god and sin and how getting vaccinated was a sin against god and how everyone needs to open their eyes, but frankly, all I could see was a dead man walking.
His reputation, what there was of it, began and ended with his green car.
It wasn't a great car, just green.
It didn't do anything particularly well so it was notable for being green.
He's said he wants to be buried in his green car.
He wants to drive up to the pearly gates, honk, and cruise right in.
His family thinks the green car is a substitute for a girlfriend, a best friend or a life.
November 24, 2021
Do things have a way of working out for you? Are you able to put plans and goals into motion simply because you believe that you can pull them off? If so, the thoughts you have about your life are positive and affirming and will manifest themselves one way or another. If, on the other hand, things are not so hunky dory, again, it's due to the thoughts you have about your life. Capish?
November 25, 2021
Overheard two vendors at a local Farmers' Market.
-- I hate getting up this early.
-- We're farmers for christsakes. That's what we do.
-- I still hate it.
-- Well then, you shoulda been a banker, start at 10, done by 3.
-- Come on, there's gotta be farmers that sleep late.
-- Well that's just lazy. Nowhere on this earth are there farmers who sleep late or are lazy. Not one, nowhere.
-- So I could be the first banker farmer. Start at 10, maybe 10:30, work a little bit, have a big farm lunch, work a little bit more and then quit by mid-afternoon.
-- Yeah, don't forget to tell the cows and horses and all those who tend your vegetables, wheat, corn and soybeans, Don't work too hard boys, this here's a banker's farm!
-- I'm warming to the idea.
-- I'm not surprised. Hey, I've got an idea too - why don't you go to bed earlier so you don't need to sleep late?
-- I am NOT going to go to bed at 8 o'clock at night. That's...that's a deal breaker.
-- Your poor sleep habits are besmirching the good names of farmers is what you're doing.
-- Besmirching? Me? Ok, what if we start taking naps? They have siestas in Mexico, that's reasonable as hell, why don't we do that?
-- You farm in British Columbia, Canada, not Mexico. In British Columbia, Canada, we don't do naps or sleep late.
-- I got people waiting, but you haven' heard the last from me on this.
-- Oh, goody.
November 26, 2021
I made a mistake. I had recently gotten new glasses for when I'm computing, but I also needed new reading glasses for close up work. So I went back to the optometrists and without thinking, picked out the same frames I have for my computer glasses. Now, I can't tell which pair is which unless I pick them up and put them on. A colossal waste of time. A fool's blunder. I made a mistake.
November 27, 2021
This is Canada. It's the end of November. The most unremarkable thing someone said today:
"It could snow tonight."
November 29, 2021
I saw a mom and her three kittens out for a walk. T'was nothing remarkable, nothing spectacular, but was just cute as can be; adorable and lovely in the most mundane of ways.
