Month: May 2016

By Jim Hagarty

I pulled into a very small and very crowded parking lot this afternoon to pick up a pizza.

I squeezed my car into a hairpin of a space and then got out. Confronting me was the sign shown above.

We have a company in Canada called Ticket Defenders which helps people fight tickets they receive for a variety of infractions, some of them issued because of parking violations.

My first thought was, am I going to get a ticket for parking in the Ticket Defenders’ spot? And if I do, can I walk into the Ticket Defenders’ office, situated right in front of my car, and ask them to defend me in court so I can get out of paying the ticket?

If they turn me down, is there a business anywhere called Ticket Defenders Ticket Defenders which will fight on my behalf to get the ticket issued by Ticket Defenders cancelled?

If there isn’t, I might have to open one.

First, I need to finish my pizza.

By Jim Hagarty

I had to see the optometrist today.

Wasn’t sure I needed to, but as I drove down the main street searching for his office, I started to panic. I couldn’t find the building I have visited once a year for almost three decades.

There were cars pushing me from behind, yes, but I searched frantically for the signs to his practice. And I couldn’t see them.

“Why would they take their frickin signs down?” I asked myself aloud.

I drove right by and kept on going. Turned around in a parking lot and crept my way back, finally recognizing the old brick cottage that was converted into an eye clinic years ago. I pulled into the parking lot and walked to the front of the building, by the main street.

With the benefit of time to have a good look, I recognized three huge signs identifying the building as the eye clinic. Two of them were lighted signs, attached to the house. The other was a big static sign on a fence, close to the street.

I guess, it occurred to me, that if you can’t see three signs – the largest about six feet wide – to the eye clinic, it might be time for a check up.

The optometrist agreed.

By Jim Hagarty

You might have noticed the subtitle for Lifetime Sentences is Tales from a Wandering Mind.

You might also have noticed, if you have been reading this blog, that I do, in fact, appear to have a wandering mind.

I’m like the guy who responded to the friend who commented on his bloodshot eyes, “You should see them from my side.”

It doesn’t bother me that my mind wanders, but sometimes it is tiring. It is like there is someone in my head with a tiny remote control, continuously changing the channels.

I would like to complete that last thought, but I am afraid my mind has already wandered away.

By Jim Hagarty

I read an interesting article today.

The headline said, “Spare us, Internet experts”.

The woman who wrote the article complained about all the chatter by commenters on the Internet about a current issue in the news.

The writer of the piece criticizing the Internet commenters, of course, published her insightful criticism on a news blog.

On the Internet.

I think she just might be an expert.

By Jim Hagarty

If I could only be half as smart
As the guys in the coffee shop.
I’d probably own a yacht by now
And hang with the cream of the crop.

Cause those guys seem to know everything
And they make me feel like a dunce.
I wish I could be as smart as them,
Not all the time, only once.

And once would be all it would take, I think
For me to hit it big.
I’d put all that wisdom to perfect use
And then be dancing a jig.

I’d set out to buy that coffee shop
And put up the price of each cup.
And charge those guys a wisdom tax
When they noticed the price had gone up.

If I was as smart as the guys in the shop
But I know I will never be.
It’s a dream I have, just a foolish dream,
That I know I will never see.

So I listen instead to the smart guys talk
And wonder just how it could be,
That God gave the brainpower to those guys,
And there was none left over for me.

By Jim Hagarty

I own a bunch of shares in a company on the stock exchange.

I just checked the price. It’s down two cents.

When I first started managing my own investments using the Internet, two cents would make me shiver. Ten cents would make me shake. Twenty cents would start me howling.

SELL. SELL. SELL.

Of course, sell. The only thing to do. Lose $400 or $700. I was lucky to get out so easily.

Two hours later, the stock would be up 18 cents.

Holy Crap!

I used to say Holy Crap a lot, in the beginning.

This went on for a few years. I’d make $1,000, lose $800, make $300.

Then I got so frustrated, I would quit. For a month.

Finally, I got researching quotes by Warren Buffett about investing. If you want to know how to shoot a hockey puck, forget about your brother-in-law who hasn’t been on skates in 40 years. Hang around Wayne Gretzky or Sidney Crosby for a while.

Anyone who has made $60 billion through investing must know a thing or two, I surmised.

For once, I surmised correctly.

Buffett lays it all out there for anyone and everyone to see.

He was asked one time whether or not it bothered him to give away all his secrets. Did he not feel threatened that he would have too much competition if he shared what he knew so freely?

He just laughed and said he wasn’t worried at all. Because most people wouldn’t follow his advice anyway.

Having been “buffetted” by the rise and fall of the market, I was ready for his advice and I follow it as well as I can today.

God I love that guy.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I once had a turtle named Joe.
He was cute but impossibly slow.
As I rushed around
He’d sit there and frown.
It seems he had nowhere to go.

By Jim Hagarty

The first time I saw little black shadows floating across my eyeballs, I thought I was in big trouble.

All of a sudden, spiders were living in my eyes, but when I would try to get a good look at them, by turning my eyeballs left or right, they would scamper away. I would just see a trace of them as they ran to hide.

Panic-stricken, I ran to the doctor. He explained that these were “floaters”, nothing to worry about. Just something that comes with age. I still have them, but I am so used to them now, I rarely see them any more.

The first time a 747 went roaring through my head as I settled into bed to try to sleep, I thought I was going deaf. It was tinnitus. Hearing damage from loud and prolonged excessive noise over many decades had left me with this ringing in my ears that will be there till I die. I barely notice it now.

Other lovely things awaited. Skin tags? Oh yay! Off to the doctor, onto a hospital bed, have them snipped off. They grew back, or at least, new ones showed up.

Skin damaged from too much sun exposure keeps my dermatologist in business.

I have been to all kinds of specialists with all kinds of complaints. I am glad they have been there for me.

But the other night, I had a telephone conversation with a woman who phoned me out of the blue, someone I hadn’t seen in years. She is 80 now. The entire conversation, from her end anyway, was about health and doctors and death. I couldn’t wait to get off the phone.

I met a neighbour the other day, also a senior. She asked me how I was doing.

“Well,” I said, only half jokingly, “I wake up in pain every morning. My whole body. From my toes to my nose.”

“What are you doing about it?” she asked, and was disgusted when I replied:

“Nothing. I want nature to take its course.”

She was not amused.

Maybe I have fibromyalgia or something like it. Maybe there’s a treatment or a pill or a yoga class …

But I feel like I wasted too much of my mid-life worrying about my health declining and now that it actually is slipping a bit, I don’t feel the need to pull out all the stops to reverse what is probably mostly irreversible.

I can walk, talk, see, hear, swallow.

I’m good.

That might be the thing about becoming a senior that can’t be anticipated. We know NASA is going to have to shut down some systems to keep the craft in orbit. But as long as we can look out that little window and see the beauty of the Universe …

It isn’t that the body would begin to degrade. We knew that. In my 40s and 50s, I thought that would be awful.

Now, it seems less of a big deal.

I’ve got a dreaded energy drink cooling in the fridge and a chocolate bar in the cookie jar. A lawn chair waiting for me in the back yard.

Things are fine.

By Jim Hagarty

“Does anyone know where Luigi is,” is the oft-asked question in our house regarding the whereabouts of one of our elusive cats. His twin brother Mario conceals himself, all day long, in plain sight.

“Hang on, I’ll find him,” I call back.

Then I reach over from the computer table and lightly slam the door to the basement. In less than four seconds, Luigi will extricate himself from his hideout and appear at the door. He cannot stand to see that door closed. Beyond that door lies his food dish, waterbowl and that little enclosure we affectionately call (all us being Christmas Vacation fans) the shitter.

The opposite also works. If Luigi is in the basement, and I want him to come upstairs, I don’t bother calling him. I just close the door to the basement. Four seconds later, “Scratch, scratch, scratch.” And presto. There he is.

A friend told me many years ago the cat is always on the wrong side of the door.

What a wise woman she is.