Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty
2013

I am mad at my cat Luigi. Really mad, in fact. If he lived at your house, you would be too.

The reason I am upset is the boy will not look after his teeth. I have told him and told him to take better care of them, but he won’t. He is stubborn as a billy goat. As a result, the vet has recommended Luigi be administered the Dental Preventative Package. This will cost Luigi $473.41. As he does not have a very high income at the moment, I will be forced to take it out of his weekly allowance, a bit at a time.

However, if, in the course of getting the Dental Preventative Package, it is discovered the Luigi will need a tooth pulled, he is going to have to cough up $8.14 per minute for 30 minutes of surgery for a cost of $244.20. Of course, he will also require 30 units of Isoflurane Maintenance at $3.30 for another $99. He will also need $71.46 of pre-anesthetic/surgery blood work. And finally, Luigi will have to dig into his mad money to come up with $30.50 for the blood collection fee.

The total for all this work will be $976.44 taxes included. That is if he needs only one tooth pulled. If he needs two, the price would rise by another $503.03 for a total of $1,479.47.

To recap: to clean the cat’s teeth will be $473.41 and to remove one tooth will increase the price to $976.44, two teeth, $1,479.47. To fix the teeth. Of a cat. A cat.

I have lectured Luigi till I am blue in the face and my own teeth hurt and he hides behind the water heater because he doesn’t want to listen any more. But it’s clear. He is going to have to get a job. If we pay all his bills for him, how will he ever learn to be responsible? Those mice don’t catch themselves, I have told him.

He doesn’t listen. To him I am just a great big can opener with an attitude.

To increase the misery, Luigi has a twin brother Mario who has somehow managed to keep his biters in pretty good shape so far. If his go bad, we will all be moving into the poor house.

By Jim Hagarty
2007

Dogs are front and centre in the news this week and so they should be. Man’s best friend too often gets buried (like a bone) somewhere in the back pages. (Brings to mind the old joke: My dog loves your newspaper; I saw him pouring over it last night.)

However, the poor critters featured in this week’s headlines are in desperate need of some public relations management. These stories do anything but show them putting their best paws forward.

First off is the media coverage of the scrawny little mutt called Elwood who has won the title of World’s Ugliest Dog. Pictures of him on TV and in newspapers confirm that the judges probably did not make a mistake when they voted. He is to canine pulchritude what the horsefly is to the majesty of winged creatures such as the eagle. The two-year-old Chinese Crested and Chihuahua mix from New Jersey is dark coloured and hairless except for a mohawk-like puff of white fur on his head. He has bug eyes and a long, wagging tongue which, as shown on TV, seems incapable of staying in his mouth.

Now, to be ugly is one thing, but to be entered in a World’s Ugliest contest is quite another. It is a question whether or not Elwood had any say in the entry plans. My guess is he wasn’t consulted at all which raises the issue of animal abuse. Is this recognition injurious to poor Elwood’s self-esteem? To make things worse, Elwood’s title comes with $1,000 reward for his owner. Shouldn’t that money be Elwood’s to spend as he sees fit on bones, chewtoys, a supreme makeover, etc.?

Last week’s second story is about poor Duncan M. MacDonald who is registered to vote in Washington State but who will now not be allowed to do so, thanks to a narrow-minded judge. The unfortunate Australian shepherd-terrier had voted in three elections, but alas, his experiment with democracy has come to a halt. He might have gotten away with this illegal venture, too, except that he signed one of the mail-in ballot envelopes with his pawprint.

His owner is trying to claim some high ground, arguing she signed up her pooch for voting privileges to protest a system which she says makes it too easy for non-citizens to vote. She put her phone bill in Duncan’s name, then used the bill as identification to register him as a voter. This landed her in court and the clever quip from prosecutor Dan Satterberg was that his office simply couldn’t look the other way: “They say you should let sleeping dogs lie, but you can’t let voting dogs vote.” No word on whether or not Duncan plans a run for city council.

And finally, a dog in Minnesota is an accessory after the crap, so to speak, now that his owner has been found guilty of putting his pet’s feces in a parking ticket envelope and sending it to city hall. The dog’s master has been ordered to pay nearly $3,000 to a woman who became seriously ill in April after opening the envelope. He also must write an apology letter to the victim and pay a $300 fine.

When the office employee opened envelopes from the drop box, she noticed a brown fluid leaking from one envelope. The fluid got onto her hands and she awoke the next day with a headache and vomited repeatedly and was hospitalized for about two days with an undetermined illness.

This is the sort of thing that destroys trust between dog and owner and that is a crime in itself. When can this poor doggie ever again believe what his master plans to do with his doo doo?

By Jim Hagarty
2015

The world appears as though it is one world, but it isn’t one at all. There are many, many worlds in this big world and if we’re lucky, we might just figure out which one we belong in.

I needed new headphones after sitting on the ones I loved so much and breaking them, so I wandered into a leftover store, often called a surplus store. There on a wire rack, hung sets of headphones not even in packaging. They looked good, if simple, and were black. No name on them. They cost $1.99.

Six decades on the planet should give you the ability to recognize crap when you see it so I moved on. To this store and that store. Finally, a store dedicated to electronics. They had lots of headphones too, so I gave them a look. Nice pair of Sonys that wrap around the neck for $30. And there was a set of Bose headphones in a glass cabinet with a pricetag of $349. I think they come with their own butler and a free live concert in your living room by a famous band of your choosing, leftover Beatles extra. I kept looking and finally, there they were. Gleaming from another case like a golden chalice on a cathedral altar. The highest auditory achievement of the Universe since the invention of the ear drum. A pair of Zennheiser headphones selling for a mere $399.

So, this is how you sort yourself out. Do you belong in the $1.99 world or the $399 one? And if you are a $1.99er, can you even imagine the life of a person with $399 to spend on a pair of headphones?

I went back to the leftover store and walked snootily past the $1.99 rack to another shelf with other headphones (in packages) that ranged in price from $4.99 to $9.99. I plunked down $4.99 and brought my new good-looking stereophonic hardware home.

I am officially announcing tonight that these are the worst headphones in this – and any other – world. Trying to listen to sound with these things on is like pressing your ear against a water glass held against your apartment wall to hear what the neighbours are fighting about, except the water glass sound would be better. I know what the neighbours are fighting about anyway. The husband spent the rent money on the Zennheisers. Shoulda joined me in the leftover store. Our own little world.

By Jim Hagarty
1991

If I was a thief, and if I don’t soon win the lottery I might have to become one, I would have my eye on any number of things to steal out there in Perth County.

I’ve seen a red Corvette convertible I wouldn’t mind making off with in the middle of the night, a big Winnebago motorhome that would look just great with my smiling face behind the steering wheel and a motorboat that I’m sure was built with me in mind.

Being a music lover, I’d steal a nice, expensive Martin acoustic guitar if I went out for a night of thieving or an audio-visual centre complete with CD player, a VCR and the best speakers money could buy. I might steal somebody’s record collection.

There are homes in the county that are furnished with beautiful antiques from basement to attic and if I was in the habit of taking what isn’t mine, I’d have a few of those around my place. I might even make off with a prized painting or two or a brass door knocker or a set of wicker porch furniture.

I can even see the value in digging up a couple of lush trees from someone’s front yard to plant in my yard. I might take a plush leather jacket, or a pair of cowboy boots. Or even a flashy new bicycle.

But I’ll tell you what I wouldn’t steal.

I wouldn’t steal a portable toilet.

Call me a snob, but my heart has never been set on having anyone else’s Johnny-on-the-spot. You could line up 50 of the best ones made on your front lawn and I wouldn’t take one of them. If I could make a killing selling modern two-holers on the black market, I wouldn’t thank you for the opportunity.

But we’re all different, I realize now.

Because I read in the paper on Tuesday about the theft of a $700 portable toilet from a construction site near Russeldale. The thieves will have a hard time hiding their booty because I expect, by now, that police dogs have picked up their scent and are hot on the trail.

But the question remains. Why would anyone steal a toilet?

I can think of only three possible answers.

Perhaps they have already stolen everything else and are getting down on their list of desirable items for theft.

Maybe Perth County is running out of things to steal.

Or – and this theory is the most complicated – perhaps they needed a portable toilet.

Now, I realize that historically, people have stolen when they were in need – food when they were starving, money when they were destitute, etc. But if the thieves in question needed a toilet that badly, couldn’t they have found some way out of their dilemma that would have saved them from having to turn to crime? Couldn’t they have stolen off behind a tree, for example? Or into a corn field?

My prediction is, if this toilet theft leads to a rash of such thefts a toilet paper stealing spree can’t be far behind. Follow the paper trail and it will lead you right to the pooper scoopers and the smelly spoils of their crappy crime.

By Jim Hagarty
2015

I have been looking for a new sport ever since my doctor put an end to my hang gliding (I landed inside a silo near Kinkora and got some scrapes) and now I think I have found it in New York.

Several dozen competitors from around the world took turns Sunday hurling a sacrificial banjo into a polluted urban canal to see who could throw it the farthest. Tyler Frank of St. Louis bested all other male competitors with an 85-foot throw. On the women’s side, Nada Zimmerman of Innsbruck, Austria, tossed the banjo 67 feet into Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal.

Two things: I want to hire Tyler to tutor me and I am madly in love with Nada.

Event founder, banjo player and radio host Eli Smith, says, “I love the banjo, and yet I have a perverse desire to see it thrown into a body of water.” I don’t see anything perverse about that at all.

So, I’ll be down at the Avon River in Stratford practising tonight. I just hope I don’t hit a duck or a dragon boater.

Finally, my sport. Shows if you are patient, the right one will come along.

By Jim Hagarty
2007

Nothing’s simple any more. You hear it said. So do I. You might, in fact, have heard it from me. I’m usually saying it. People of the jury, I present as my evidence, well, just about every aspect of modern life.

You don’t want to know about my underwear buying habits, I’m sure, but I just recently spent almost half an hour in a men’s clothing section trying to decide among the many options available today for the simple job performed by underwear, whatever job that might be. Colours galore, patterns aplenty, boxers, briefs. Value paks of six pairs, or three pairs. Special occasion briefs.

In the good old days, there was one kind of men’s and boy’s underwear and one kind only. However, you had a wide variety of colours to choose from – as long as it was white.

It doesn’t matter what you go to buy, or to eat, or to watch in a theatre. Saturday, at one of these big movieplexes, a friend and I stood gawking for 15 minutes before the popcorn stand, weighing all the various options and packages priced for value. Bargain hunters from way back, we took our time and came up with what we think, but still aren’t sure, was the best buy.

Has anyone’s life improved as a result of having all this variety pumped into it? I don’t know. I do know that simplicity is as quaint a notion as table manners, modesty and diplomacy.

Witness my main piece of evidence. When I was a kid on the farm in the 1830s, our black and white TV got three channels – London, Wingham and Kitchener. We picked up the broadcast signals from these stations by way of a space-station-looking aerial on the roof of the house which we controlled by an electric “rotor” in our living room. Amazing science.

Today, in the city, of course, my TV-watching options are much more varied although my family and I have not opted for all the channels money can buy. For 22 years, I have had a pretty good arrangement with my cable company. They’ve run a wire into my house, I’ve plugged it into my TV, they send me a bill for this luxury every month, and I pay it. Every year they send me a letter saying, sorry, but we have to charge you more for your service. I pay it. I don’t see any other cable companies banging on my door, so I have no choice.

Now, in my feeble mind, the simplicity of the relationship between me and my cable company goes like this: If I don’t pay, they take the wire away. Not hard to understand. I don’t get to have that bag of potato chips if I won’t give the cashier the money for them.

But this week, I received in the mail an “Important Notice of Changes” to my service. “As part of our ongoing effort to improve customer service, we have simplified the terms applicable to our various services.” I opened the document and it fell out before me like a scroll Julius Caesar might have read from. On that parchment are typed 5,493 words (I did a computer word count) defining the new relationship between my cable company and me.

Somewhere, a lawyer is basking in the south sea sun at a beautiful resort paid for with the money he or she charged my cable company to write to me with all these simplified terms. There are 52 sections in the document and most of them seem to more or less define what awful things will happen to me if I don’t live up to the agreement.

OK, here’s a little nugget: “We may assign or transfer the Service Agreement or any of our rights or obligations hereunder without your consent. The provisions of Sections 8, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 and any other provisions of these terms which by their meaning are intended to survive termination. These Terms have been drawn up in the English language at the express request of the parties.”

I am baffled as I believe I am a party and I don’t remember expressly requesting this, or anything else, with the possible exception of being left alone.

Here is the most I can put together from all I’ve read so far. If I don’t pay them, they’ll take the wire away.

If I was writing the Simplified Terms, I’d reduce the 5,493 words to about 12: If you don’t pay your bill, you will lose your cable signal. Words a TV-addicted couch potato like me can understand.

Expressly.