Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty
1994

The interesting thing about problems is how there is never any shortage of new ones waiting around the corner for you. Creaky knees, unpaid bills, leaky taps and roof repairs are the ones you expect. They’re comfortable. Treatable. You know whom to call.

But it’s a cruel world when your own car turns on you in the middle of the coldest winter on record in a truly shocking way. There’s nothing mechanically wrong with the vehicle but in the last two weeks, it’s taken to zapping me with electrical charges that have made me truly afraid to be around it.

The dry outside air, I guess, combined with my sliding along the upholstered driver’s seat as I exit the car, have been combining to set up a reserve of static electricity that, when released, would blow the hat off me, if I wore a hat. This is distressing for me because, for a very good, historical reason, I hate with a passion being on the receiving end of a mini-lightning strike. My theory, and I think it’s a good one, is that when I was a kid living on a farm which made use of electric fences to keep the cattle from wandering over to the neighbours, I had so many volts run through me, entering by the head, neck, legs, back, hands, feet and who knows what else, that I developed a deep aversion to hydro. It isn’t that I mind it running my TV or fridge. I just can’t see any useful purpose in having it coursing through my veins and lighting up the corneas in my eyeballs.

So, I am extra cautious around sources of electric power, preferring other ways to get my thrills, ways that have nothing to do with the conveyance of negative and positive energy particles through any part of my anatomy. This is why these past two weeks have been somewhat of a nightmare. I’ve been in and out of my car a lot lately, almost every time with the same result. As soon as my hand touches the steel on the car door as I go to shut it, that only familiar feeling strikes again.

“Yow!!!” is all I can say at such times. And yow is a word I do not toss around lightly.

I’ve even taken to experimenting with ways of avoiding the inevitable but I’ve discovered that once charged, you’re like a lit firecracker that won’t be satisfied until it’s exploded. Yesterday, as I exited the car, I touched only plastic parts and smiled as I walked away from the vehicle, thinking I had won a round. However, as I reached to put some change in a parking meter…

“Yow!!!”

This situation is even affecting my social life as my supercharged forefinger has recently taken to zapping the fingers of other people I’ve been coming into contact with resulting, I think, in some of them wondering if this was some sort of sign that they should ask me out on a date. And my cats run for cover when I come into the house at night, knowing from experience they’re liable to get their ears singed when I reach down to pet them.

In any case, I guess I can live with this annoyance as long as garage doors I walk by don’t start opening on their own or I don’t start receiving pictures in my head from the Hubble Space Telescope.

And who knows? Maybe these electroshock therapy treatments, several times a day, will give me just the attitude adjustment I’ve been looking for and people have been saying I desperately need.

By Jim Hagarty
2013

The house is pretty quiet here every weekday. I am all alone. I don’t even have any music playing. I just sit at my desk bearing down intently on work I do on the computer.

At some point almost every day, I feel someone touch me on the upper back. SCREAM! There is nobody else here but me!

It’s Luigi, our cat, and he wants some food. He goes through his life quieter than a monk in a monastery but he touches me on the back when he is desperate. It wouldn’t occur to him to meow like other cats do. No, a gentle touch to take a few more days off my life is just what the doctor ordered, says Luigi.

I should know it’s coming but I am never prepared.

By Jim Hagarty
2001

Hi, my name is Jim and I am a recovered road rager.

This is my story.

My problem started 34 years ago when I was 16 and got my driver’s licence. Before then, I had had only minor attacks of RR, though signs that I would one day be afflicted by the disorder were already there, now that I look back on it. For example, I used to yell after cars that would spray me with stones as I rode my bike home from school along the gravel roads that led to my farmhouse. And later on I’d mutter and scowl at truckers that would come close to squashing me like a bug as I putt-putted one of my father’s old tractors along the shoulder of the road.

But these mild traffic tantrums were just a foreshadowing of the ranting and raving that would ensue once I was given that little green piece of paper that allowed me to guide gas-powered tanks of plastic, steel and glass up and down the highways of the world. How was I to know that sharing those thoroughfares with me would be some of the biggest jerks to ever strap on a seatbelt? I have been tailgated by tandem trucks, cut off by compact cars, held up by happy holidayers and petrified by pea-brained passers. I was once slammed into from behind by a driver too busy kissing his girlfriend to bother jamming on his brakes. Another time I was hit broadside by a woman who put on her blinker but just for fun, I guess, as she didn’t bother to make the turn she was indicating she would, so I pulled out in front of her (and was charged, a blinker having no legal status, the police said). Most recently, I was hit head on by a cab driver who pulled out to pass a parked car and didn’t see me there, so small and invisible was I in my full-sized, family lumberwagon.

So, my torment mounted over the years and I fought back. I used every imaginable inappropriate behaviour possible to display my dismay until I finally saw the light. I won’t go into details about how I carried on. But let’s just say that the normally meek and mild me could, at the honk of a horn or the sound of “Learn to drive, loser!”, instantly transform into a frenzied freeway Frankenstein, though I never took to brandishing a pistol or baseball bat as some of my colleagues do.

The good news in all of this, however, is that I have not had even close to one incident of RR in over five years. With any luck, I may never again give in to the urge to vent my bruised feelings while cruising along life’s highways.

Here, in nine simple steps, is how I overcame my affliction. Perhaps this will work for you too.

1. In a shopping mall parking lot, back your vehicle out, somewhat prematurely, perhaps, into the path of an oncoming car, forcing the driver to apply his brakes to avoid hitting you.

2. Look in your rear-view mirror to see the big guy behind you losing his mind and listen with blossoming anger as he honks his horn long and loud at you.

3. Flip up the forefinger of your left fist and hold your thus-saluting arm out the window of your car to acknowledge your appreciation of your fellow motorist’s concern over your driving skill level and the perceived deficiencies in it.

4. Watch in dismay as your new-found foe practically locks the front of his car onto the back of yours and prepares to follow you out of the parking lot in this two-ton tango.

5. Realize with growing panic that this demented maniac – obviously released just that day from a maximum-security prison – now intends to follow you in this fashion until you run of gas at which time he will then administer, on your head, a little road rage of his own.

6. Begin to shake uncontrollably and break into a cold sweat as your parking lot pal soon takes to pulling up beside you as you drive along and shaking his fist at you in a preview of how he intends to exact justice once he somehow gets a hold of you.

7. Realize forlornly you can’t go home as you’d rather not share your address with your suddenly acquired, not-so-silent stalker.

8. Head for the local police station and watch in relief as the tactic finally shakes your tormentor from your tail.

9. Wonder for three days after whether or not your own personal road warrior might suddenly appear again as you’re driving along somewhere and least expect to renew your acquaintanceship with him.

I’m cured.

Now, in the fashion of all who’ve suddenly changed their ways, I’d like to cure the rest of the world too.

I propose the opening of a boot camp for road ragers. Hire the guy who chased me around to chase them around. The only thing on the menu would be great spoonsful of YOM (Your Own Medicine). It tastes awful, but served up by the right physician, it’s been known to work wonders.

(Jim Hagarty is a freelance writer living and driving quietly in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.)

By Jim Hagarty
2013

The other night a friend showed me something that I didn’t know existed. It is an archival CD, made with gold and guaranteed to keep information safe for 300 years.

This to me is startling. How can anyone know this little gold disc will preserve music (in my friend’s case) for three centuries? How would anyone be able to test that? Three hundred years is a long time. Three hundred years ago there was no Canada, no United States of America. The Rolling Stones were touring but they were pretty much the only band out there.

Who is going to give my friend his money back if it fails in its 278th year?

But wouldn’t it be great to dig up one of these CDs from 300 years ago and be able to hear what people sounded like back then?

By Jim Hagarty
1992

As it is with most human mistakes, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Having just replied in detail for the fourth or fifth time to the oft-repeated, post-Dec. 25 question, “Well, was Santy Claus good to you this Christmas?”, I decided to see if I could spice up my reply by naming gifts I had never received. By substituting a little illusion in the place of reality, I could hang on to a wee bit of the privacy so hard to find any more in today’s world and satisfy my questioners at the same time. My enquirers and I would all emerge satisfied from our Christmas post-mortem sessions.

Not being accustomed to blatantly telling untruths to people in answer to straightforward questions, I found myself a little uncomfortable at the start. But after my first couple of outright lies, it got easier. It was almost fun.

For some reason, I can’t explain, I settled on a popular brand of personal cassette tape player as the main Christmas gift in my reply to my questioners.

“Well, was Santy Claus good to you this Christmas?” came the question from my first victim.

“Sure was,” I replied. “I got a personal portable tape player.”

“Good for you!” continued my co-worker. “Do you like it?”

“I love it,” I said, with sort of a straight face.

With practice, I improved. I began elaborating about how I loved the tiny stereo so much I almost hated to take off the earphones to go to bed. I also started working it in there that this was the best Christmas present I had ever received.

At some point, I even decided to stash another gift for myself under the tree.

“Great Christmas,” I’d reply. “I got a personal portable tape player and a dishwasher.”

A few eyebrows shot up at the news of my dishwasher present but nobody pressed for more information about it and I think my secret wasn’t blown. But I realized I had better stop there and not begin adding things to the list like a new mini-van or a summer cottage.

My deliberate falsehoods were going over well but I suspect there comes a moment of truth in the lives of most people who practise to deceive and mine came Monday morning.

“Well, didja have a good Christmas?” asked Frank, a fellow worker.

“Great, thanks,” I said.

“Get lots of presents?” he continued.

“Yeah, I did all right,” I said. “I got a personal portable stereo and a dishwasher. “

“A portable stereo, eh?” said Frank. “So did I.”

My face flushed.

“How do you like yours?” he asked.

“I, uh, I love it,” I said, timidly. “Listen to it all the time …”

“I was wondering,” he said. “You’ll know. Does it take regular cassette tapes or those miniature cassettes?”

Not being the proud owner of such a machine, I was in a corner, explaining details of the device to a man who does own one.

“Ah, just the regular ones,” I suggested.

“And, how do you turn on the tape?” Frank continued. “Do you flip a switch to ‘tape’ or something and press a button?”

“Ah, yes, ah, just flip the switch to ‘tape’ and press the ‘play’ button.”

“Thanks,” said Frank.

“No problem,” I answered, weakly.

I realize now, I’m not, at heart, a very good teller of lies. I get so nervous in all situations where my credibility’s on the line that I believe I’d fail a lie-detector test even if I was telling the truth. And in a court of law, though innocent, I’d be sure to jump to my feet at some point during the deliberations and yell, “I did it!”

For the record, Frank, I got clothes for Christmas. Two books. Two CDs. A pen. A calendar. After-shave lotion.

And a candy cane. A great, big candy cane.

Bigger ’n a personal portable stereo.

By Jim Hagarty
2015
Every Christmas I make individual calendars for each member of my family. On the back there is a space to include a few words. For our daughter Sarah, who will be leaving for university next fall, I used a line from an Emmylou Harris song, Love and Happiness: “Wear your ruby shoes, when you’re far away, so you’ll always stay, home in your heart.” The last present she opened today was a pair of ruby shoes. I didn’t know she was getting them. Neither did her mother know about the saying I used on Sarah’s calendar when she bought the shoes. As omens go, this is a pretty good one. Merry Christmas.

By Jim Hagarty
2012

So the laundry tub drain is plugged. Fill the stupid tub with hot water. Burn my hand reaching in to pull the plug. Nothing. Fifteen minutes to empty the tub. Get a wire hanger, stick it down the drain for a while. Nothing. Pour a whole gallon of vinegar down. Nothing. Rats. Will need to call plumber and will need to part with $100 at least.

Frustrated. Then I remember Google.

Run upstairs to laptop. Enter laundry tub drain blocked. Four million hits (seems like it, anyway.) First one: Fill tub one-third full then use toilet plunger to free drain which is probably blocked by lint. But make sure to block second open pipe where washing machine water enters. So, stick plug in top of pipe. Get plunger. Tharump! Plug blows right out of top of pipe. Water shoots down laundry tub drain like crazy. Can’t believe my eyes.

OMG I love the Internet sometimes. Sorry Butch (real name), my friendly plumber, but we both know you’ll get me another day.