Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I once ate a whole cherry pie.
Just me, myself and I.
My family said, “Hey.”
“Give us some some day.”
I looked at them and enquired, “Why?”

By Jim Hagarty
2012

A few years ago, my son and daughter gave me a TV for my birthday. A brand new 13-inch Electrohome TV for my bedroom. They got it at a place where you can also buy tires.

This little thing has amazing colour but not much else. It doesn’t have stereo sound and only minimal outlets to plug things into. But I love it. Its stay in our bedroom was brief as we never watched it but it migrated to the kitchen and has seen a lot of use there.

One day recently I was strolling through our local second-hand shop looking for a bargain when I saw it. Exactly the same TV. For $5. Now a man would need to be horsewhipped if he didn’t buy something like that so I carted it home, convinced that there would be something wrong with it. Maybe the picture would be terrible. Or the sound.

I took it into the garage and with hands shaking with excitement, plugged it in, hooked up the cable and turned it on. My joy could not be measured. It was as good as the one the kids gave me years ago. For $5.

So now, guess where I wanted to do all my TV watching? A problem soon became apparent, however. Because of the small size of the screen, I couldn’t sit across the room and watch it so I found myself standing right in front of it while I watched. This got a little annoying and I thought to myself, “It is too bad I couldn’t get the same TV, only bigger.”

There were problems with that wish. I didn’t know if a larger version of this machine had ever even been made. And even if it had been, the TV was a few years old now. What chance would there ever be that such an imaginary TV would show up anywhere where I might see it?

A few weeks ago, I was back in the second-hand shop and there it sat: My dream come true! Nineteen inches of pure, unadulterated Electrohome. For $10. A man would need to be held down and hog tied if he didn’t buy something like that so I hauled it up to the counter, bought it, drove home and sneaked it in the back door of the garage. (This was necessary because our home looks like a TV warehouse these days.)

I thought, “Well, this one will definitely suck.” I got it hooked up and turned it on. As good if not better than the other two miniature versions I now own. My life was complete.

It was like finding the blonde you had your eye on but who is too young for you, has a blonde mother who could pass for her sister. Or something like that. (If my wife is reading, I wouldn’t know anything about that. Just looking for a simile.)

And the great thing was, I didn’t have to admit to the latest purchase because the TV looked exactly like the one it replaced on the shelf. No one noticed that it was six inches bigger.

Anyway, Life and Fate throw you a bone every now and then. An Electrohome Bone. And all that needs to be done is to pick it up and chew on it. However, can you imagine what the same TV in 26 inches would look like?

Wait for my new series: Jim the TV Hunter.

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(Update: A terrible storm hit our town in the spring of 2013, a year after the story above. Lightning struck a tree behind our neighbour’s house. None of our three Electrohomes were on surge protectors. They all died a horrible death. I believe a moment of silence is appropriate so please bow your head. Thank you. I will never forget them.)

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There was a wee turtle named Bub.
Who took a bath every day in a tub.
He’d wash himself well,
Especially his shell.
There was no part that he wouldn’t scrub.

By Jim Hagarty
1987

You can’t really claim to be with it these days unless you’ve been involved in a study. Either the subject of one or the person doing the studying.

We’ve become, let’s face it, a society of studiers. Men are studying women. Women are studying men. Women are studying women. Both sexes are studying sex. And food. And sex. And pollution. And sex. And civil rights.

And sex.

It works like this. Somebody wonders whether or not there’s a connection between pea soup and bladder infections. So, he wanders around asking a bunch of pea soup eaters about their peas. He tabulates the replies, figures out a few conclusions and sends off copies of the results to the media. Next day, front page: Study shows pea soup keeps people going. Author grants TV interviews. Publishes hardcover book. Spends winter in Jamaica.

Person B reads the study, says, “Hold on, now. This pea guy’s full of beans,” and heads off to do a counter study which reveals, to no one’s surprise, that people can eat pea soup till they look like it and there’s no need to pass it up. Pea soup companies praise the report and use it in their ads. Pea soup haters deny its findings. Person B flies off to Bermuda in December.

Somebody really ought to start studying the studiers. A good study might just show that the balls of their feet were tickled too much when they were babies or not enough or that they only got half their minimum daily requirement of hugs. Or that they got hugged too tightly too often causing a reduction on the flow of blood and oxygen to their brains.

Or maybe somebody should study all the rest of us to find out why we think some self-proclaimed expert in a shirt and tie and carrying a clipboard and calculator is an authority on anything because he tallied up the answers on a few questionnaires he sent out, questionnaires none of us asked him to send us and most of us didn’t send back.

Imagine the study-nut as a child, surveying all the other nursery school students in his class to see whether they believed rest time lasted long enough, polling his brothers and sisters to see if they thought broccoli was an appropriate food to tell a kid he had to eat or no ice cream, and monitoring his parents’ moods to see what sorts of activities were most likely to cause them to turn red in the face and say bad words.

I’ve seen some of these children carrying out a few of their early studies. I’ve watched them dive off coffee tables onto their heads to see whether the resulting impact can be expected to produce any corresponding activity in their tear ducts. I’ve looked on as they’ve conducted tests to see if a bowl of supper thrown upside down on a clean kitchen floor will bring on any signs of distress in a tired parent. And they’re forever carrying out consumer studies on the strength of glass in relation to stones, on whether record albums lying on a couch can withstand the impact of a child’s bouncing buttocks and whether a cat dragged across a lawn by its tail will meow more than once.

In their teenage years, these future professional studiers experiment to see how many pimples can be crowded onto one human face, how angry the average teacher can be made during a 37-minute class and if it’s possible for parents to believe that 14-year-old people can forget until 3 a.m. that they were supposed to be home in their beds by 10 p.m.

Later, on the trail to that first big career job, the young adult studier interviews a lot of potential employers to see if any of them will believe any of the following statements: 1. I enjoy working hard and keeping busy; 2. I guess you could call me a self-starter; 3. Money is not a motivating factor with me; 4. My favourite pasttimes are reading, jogging, playing Mozart on the piano and learning new languages; 5. My goal in life is to help others in any small way I can and to contribute to the well-being of my family, my community and my country.

To be honest, I’ve wanted for a long time to get in on this study thing before it goes the way of the love-in, the walk-a-thon, the happy-face button and the self-help book. I sure could use a winter in the sun. But when I really get looking at it, I realize how hard it is to find anything in 1987 that hasn’t already been studied.

So someday, I’m going to release my findings about this guy that sits five stools down from me in the coffeeshop every night. I’ve been studying him for years as we’ve sat there emptying our mugs and although I’ve never spoken to him nor he to me, I’ve come to some startling conclusions concerning the flaws in his character.

And I think I’ll release the study soon because it occurs to me now that he’s been studying me back all this time and may just be thinking about publishing a study of his own.

That’d be just like him to do that.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowed Terrible Limericker

I stayed up all night posting tweets.
Then saw we were all out of eats.
I jumped in the car
But didn’t get far.
Some creep had made off with the seats.

Two beautiful birds captured by the lens of Canadian blogger Al Bossence (thebayfieldbunch.com).

By Jim Hagarty
2014

I had an interview with my dietitian on Monday. The consultation was very useful but I became confused with the various mixed messages she kept sending me. I should have taken a notebook and pen with me and written a few things down because since I’ve arrived back home, I have been unclear about a few details regarding my way ahead food-wise.

I could be wrong but I believe she advised me to drink at least eight glasses of pop a day and consume two family-size bags of potato chips weekly (not daily). I am also to eat one pound of bacon every two days, nothing but white bread, and if possible, a medium-sized (not large) slice of chocolate cake with every meal.

It is also important that I eat at least one cherry pie every week and to treat myself, a cherry cheesecake once a month. (If you get too serious about your diet, you won’t keep it up.) A bag of chocolate chips cookies should round out my weekly menu and between meals, I should aim to eat a chocolate bar, but not worry if I miss once in a while.

It is also apparently vital that I have a bagful of caramel popcorn (all to myself) while I am watching TV three or maybe four times a week (she was not very clear on this point). Pancakes and sausages for breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays but I am to use real maple syrup only, none of the fake stuff. This is important.

Oh, and I believe she said I was to eat as much pizza as possible every week, maybe three or four times, but no more than seven toppings on any one pizza. Also, I should work in three or four visits to hamburger joints every seven days for the protein.

I hope I haven’t forgotten anything.

Oh yes, I did.

I am supposed to have one carrot a week – no more.

At our next meeting, I am going to ask her to clarify some of these items to make sure I have them right. We will be talking about exercise at that session but when the subject came up on Monday, she frowned. I have a feeling she is going to advise me against it. I am willing to do whatever she tells me to.