Three Scoops is a Blast! Read online

  There was little encouragement for artistic expression in his crepuscular world. Cawing crows and their cousin ravens were vicious critics. What gave them the right? The last time one of them squawked something interesting was “Nevermore” at Edgar Allan Poe’s garden party.

  If he was going to take writing seriously, maybe he should start composing movie reviews. That’s where some of the best phrases and thematic stitchings were to be found. He knew the subject matter. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t circled around and dropped in on enough drive-in theatres in his day.

  There were words he had always wanted to use. He knew from experience the beading and sparkling sea could be variously vermilion, cerulean and umbrous. The amniotic air was often languorous or limpid.

  Ah poetry, the muted music of the soul - unless one went on a speaking tour. What wouldn’t he give to project his words before a receptive audience in a plummy English actor’s voice?

  But all these plans and speculations were tiring him out. He’d stand one-legged on this rock for a while and let the day’s last embrace slip away. In the twilight, he’d go for a final swim.

  If the setting sun angled just right, he’d ride along on a seeming sea of butter. A few popcorn clouds would float above, ready for dipping. He’d wait for the first stars to sprinkle down from heaven’s salt shaker, before heading inland to some farmer’s field.

  Wheat-quilted dreams would then bring new imaginings. It was a mighty fine life.

  Real Estate Purgatory

  October 10, 2009

  My family – wife and two daughters – had already re-located to Calgary. My job in the energy sector was taking me to where the action is, Alberta’s oil patch. I was staying behind temporarily to spend time with our real estate agent, trying to sell our townhome. It was mid-fall and we had been conducting an open house all day.

  Miranda was a petite young thing, an ethereal honey blonde, from one of Canada’s best-known realtors. I had chosen her company based on its on-air advertisements and bus-bench signs. Poor Miranda, though, still had a great deal to learn about the business. Her biggest problem was that she was too honest.

  Newlyweds, older couples, single people, it didn’t matter. They’d show up at the front door, we’d invite them in and then Miranda would begin to point out all the flaws in the house. The roof leaked. There was no basement. The cupboard doors were falling off their hinges. None of the bathroom faucets was lined up perpendicular. Every tap dripped.

  Furthermore, the nearest schools were a bit of a hike. And there were notorious gangs fighting it out over the local teenage drug trade. Nevertheless, I quite liked Miranda. She was fun company with a wicked sense of humour and a sly ability to provoke outrage. She particularly liked telling prospective buyers about the ghosts that haunted the place.

  An earlier owner had been a young man with a bipolar psychopathic disorder. He went off his meds one night while his girlfriend was staying over. He’d mistaken her for a vampire and driven a stake through her heart. When the realization sank in about what he’d done, the overwhelming remorse caused him to take his own life by way of an overdose. All of this happened in the upstairs master bedroom.

  Most visitors were appalled by Miranda’s story. But some liked the sensationalism. Others even saw past the bare bones of the plot and savoured the romantic elements in the mix of shocking ingredients. Me, I quickly became used to it and rather perversely enjoyed watching the reactions it elicited.

  As the day wore down and the flow of adult visitors dwindled, I became conscious of what time of year it was. I looked out the front window and saw tiny goblins and ninja warriors starting to fill up the street. The doorbell rang again, but this time it was a storybook princess and a tiny pooh bear that demanded our attention.

  In all the excitement, I had failed to remember it was Halloween. Miranda and I grabbed a lawn chair each and positioned ourselves outside the front door. It was an unusually mild night for late October in Toronto. We were quite comfortable as we watched the passing parade. As I had forgotten to buy candy, I let Miranda handle our gift to the children as they approached us in our lair. She simply told them her ghost story.

  After a long day, I was becoming exhausted. But a satisfying sense of ease and composure was overcoming me nonetheless. The world was transforming into a better place. It had been a long time since I was so contented and happy – 365 days to be exact.

  You see, I haven’t been completely up front with you. Miranda and I have been following exactly this same routine for many years. First the charade of trying to sell the house, then regaling and scaring the children on Halloween night. Miranda’s story contains elements of truth but it falls short in the personal and intimate details.

  I was planning a career move to Calgary with my family and Miranda was our real estate agent. But my wife was a witch. No, I don’t mean she was a bad person. She was working the neighbourhood dressed as a witch, with our daughters, Dora the explorer and her faithful sidekick, the monkey Boots. The girls ran ahead to catch up with some friends and my wife took the opportunity to return home for a short break.

  Suffice it to say she found Miranda and I doing more than talking about property values. Let me put it another way. I had submitted a “rezoning application” and she was considering “minor variances” to what we had been doing for several months.

  First, my wife shot me through the temple with her security revolver. Then she rushed back outside and plucked the “for sale” sign from our front lawn. Returning to confront my hysterical lover, she rammed the pointy end of the support post through Miranda’s chest.

  The scene was re-arranged to look like a murder-suicide. Eventually, the police interpreted it as a real estate deal gone bad. In the meantime, my wife returned to “trick or treating” with our daughters and no one was the wiser. Later, she started a new life in a location which I have never been able to determine.

  Now Miranda and I hover in what I have come to view as permanent escrow. It’s not so bad. We have relative peace. And once a year, I’m able to sit on my front lawn, Miranda by my side telling her spooky and mostly made-up tale. I get a big jack-o-lantern grin on my face. There’s only one really bad side effect. I always develop a supernatural hunger for pumpkin pie that can never be satisfied.

  I Got Robbed by a Liquor Store

  October 18, 2009

  I have a story that I know needs to be handled with delicacy. Thank goodness “finesse” is my middle name. The media often give coverage to how some hapless and usually incompetent bad guy robs a liquor store. However, this time it was the liquor store that robbed me and I’m not happy about it. Nor am I a bad guy. Or at least, that’s what I would like to think.

  This is as good a time as any to introduce a spoiler alert. Not in the sense that I am going to give away a surprise ending. But rather that I am about to reveal a side of myself you may find shocking, disturbing or, at the very least, sadly disappointing. Or maybe you’ll see me as a hero, standing up for the little guy. No, even I don’t think that’s likely.

  This past Friday night, on the cusp of Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, I knew some wine would need to be purchased to serve to all of the guests we were expecting for Sunday’s turkey dinner. That meant a sojourn to the local liquor store. It is a curious offshoot of temperance-days Ontario that alcohol in this province is sold in government-run establishments proudly displaying the LCBO logo. That’s Liquor Control Board of Ontario for the uninitiated.

  It is also an oddity that the nicest store in almost any small hamlet in this province is now the liquor store. There has been a surge of investment in such facilities and their design has been spruced up to the point where spirits and suds jump off the shelves and into customers’ shopping carts. A brighter and shinier establishment you could not possibly imagine. This is all by way of an aside, except that there is an issue concerning who has the moral high ground – the alcohol pushers or me - as you will see in a moment or two.

  So I
went into the local liquor store, picked up my libations and headed to the cash. It being a pre-holiday evening, the line-up was longer than usual. I knew I was headed for trouble when the sales clerk, in a loud voice that was only a decibel short of a shout, asked the man in front of me, “Would you like to contribute an extra two dollars for the Save the World and All its Creatures Fund?” (I’ve changed the name because there is a limit to how much trouble I want to bring onto myself.)

  This was met with a somewhat gruff, “Sure, why not” and the transaction was quickly over. My predecessor in the line showed a good deal of common sense. He recognized the inevitable and got on with his life. Do you think I could do the same? Not likely.

  By now, a considerable line-up had formed behind me. The bill was being tallied on my purchases and I knew the dreaded question would soon be posed. I was about to be strong-armed into paying two dollars more than I wanted to. It’s not like booze is cheap in the first place. There are government duties, taxes and sin levies that make the whole exercise of trying to relax, albeit with the help of an inebriant, an expensive proposition. Such charges are supposedly implemented for our own good in order to curb our excesses. Who’s kidding whom?

  My mind was going clippety-clop to come up with an acceptable and face-saving response. I could say I gave at the office. But everyone knows that’s a cop-out and probably a lie. Besides, it sounds wimpy. I could say that after dispensing their allowances to my children, I was strapped for funds. That is substantially accurate, but still lame. Or finally, and this would have been my favourite, I could say, “No. I need every extra cent I can get my hands on to feed my drug habit.” No matter what I came up with, my position was going to be untenable.

  But I felt I had to make a point. So when he said, “Would you like to contribute an extra $2 for our featured charity?” I said, “Well no, I’m not excited by the idea. But here you go anyway.” You might be surprised at my lack of integrity. If I really objected, I should have said “no” period. But long-time experience in these matters has taught me such a forthright approach is not really the best road to take.

  By forking over the money while still stating my objections, I’m imagining I’ve retained some street “cred” with the other shoppers lined up behind me. I could imagine them thinking, “This guy is a tad cranky. He’s probably had a rough day. But he’s really not so bad. Look, he’s making a contribution despite how he feels.”

  In fact, I see paying the $2 as my ticket to say pretty much whatever I like. My objection is I resent being coerced in this way. I give money to the appropriate charities when the spirit moves me. I am a bit of a miser, it’s true, but I’ve learned to be wary about where monetary contributions for a good cause actually wind up.

  I warned you early on I would not come out looking like an exemplar of good will and generosity in this tale. Here’s how I would summarize what transpired. This was fundraising under the auspices of the “Embarrass Them in Public” school of motivational techniques.

  It’s like when you go into the drugstore and the cashier goes live on the loudspeaker with the words, “Harold, I’ve got a guy here who says he’s got ringworm on his butt and the itchiness is driving him crazy (snicker snicker). Can you look in the back and see if we have any cream that would help him out?” This is a strictly hypothetical example, of course.

  It may seem like I’m making an awfully big fuss over only $2. Well a couple of bucks here and a couple of bucks there add up over time. I need the money myself for the lotions, balms and salves that will make my own life more bearable as I head into the physical abyss beyond middle age. I can work the sympathy angle too.

  Since I’ve already gone this far, I might as well be completely open. I actually do have a jar at home into which I place all of my spare change at the end of the day. What’s my secret goal? It’s to save up enough money for a professional botox treatment. Barring that, maybe I’ll have to spring for some plastic surgery.

  Given my proclivity for offending decent and caring folk, altering my appearance in a major way may be a necessary measure to ensure self-preservation.

  The CAB Nations and their Rogue Currency

  October 31, 2009

  There are three nations that have survived the recession quite well, thank you very much, due to their raw material riches, – Australia, Brazil and Canada. It would seem to be a natural progression for these three countries to come together in a new economic bloc to be known as the ABC nations.

  Canada and Brazil have oil. Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal. All three have nickel. From the companies Billiton, Vale and Rio Tinto in metals and mining and Bombardier and Embraer in regional jets, there are many commonalities in resources and industrial enterprises.

  Wheat, corn, sugar cane and oranges – with respect to one crop or another, the ABC nations are all deep in agricultural products. The list of ingredients in their treasury chests goes on and on.

  There’s the natural beauty. Australia and Brazil have incredible beaches. The girl from Ipanema strolls along the sea-kissed sands south of Rio de Janeiro. Canada has the honeymoon capital of the world, Niagara Falls.

  Australia is known as the land down under. For its part, Canada is the land frozen over. That may be a bit harsh.

  Australia has the outback. Check out a map of South America. Brazil is the hunchback. Three continents are represented in ABC.

  Canada has the North Pole. Santa Claus is a Canadian and pays taxes in this country. So do his elves. His reindeer take off under Canadian air traffic control.

  What about adding Chile to the grouping? After all, it is the world’s largest producer of copper. I’m not crazy about the name though. Canada is cold enough.

  Brazil is already part of an internationally recognized economic group, BRIC, comprised of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Why would the Cariocas want to join with the Aussies and the Canucks?

  In Australia’s case, the two are similar in their exotic natures. Brazil has the Amazon River, verdant jungles, Bossa Novas and Sambas. Australia has kangaroos and wallabies, boomerangs and billabongs. It also offers the chance to dance with Matilda.

  In Canada’s case, to learn English? Or French? Or a hundred other languages in the new national mosaic. Here’s another thought. A nation that has a President with the nickname LULU seems to be a likely candidate to hook up with a country that has a currency referred to as the loonie.

  But where does Canada sit on the exotic-o-meter? We’re kind of the regular bagel in the Tim Horton’s donut shop. We’re the bran to other nations’ fruit loops. Let me revise bran to corn flakes. At least that way, we have half a chance of being seen as flaky.

  Come to think of it, Montréal’s Cirque de Soleil is a natural fit with Carnival de Rio. There are some definite potential synergies.

  I know, somebody is going to say we’ve given the world ice hockey. Okay, then maybe another name for the three-nation grouping could be the “hat trick.” That’s the special phrase sportscasters apply when the same player scores three goals in a single game. It denotes a remarkable achievement.

  There’s another reason the term “hat trick” may be appropriate. ABC would require hard bargaining by government negotiators. On the other hand, it’s a well-known gambit of conference organizers that one way to get staid delegates to loosen up is to have them wear silly hats.

  Actually, I would prefer the ordering of ABC to be altered to CAB. First, because it would place Canada at the front. Second, because it lends itself to further wordplay.

  CAB, if it is successful enough, could eventually come to form a common market with its own currency. And there’s where the CAB designation comes in so handy.

  Such a common currency could be called the “taxi”. Or how about the “fare”, “ride”, “stand” or “hack”? Here’s my favourite, the “rogue”.

  The population of CAB is presently one quarter of a billion, with Brazil contributing 80% of the total. Maybe we should keep thi
ngs real when it comes to the currency.