Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
2012

The mind of a cat, assuming there is such a thing, is a very curious apparatus, apparently. Today was such a beautiful day I let Mario and Luigi out in the backyard to run around after lunch. I watched them from the kitchen window as I washed some dishes and I smiled at how much they seemed to be enjoying the delights of an early spring. Then I saw both of them eating grass. Hmmm. This is what cats do when they need to get rid of fur and other crap inside them but can’t get it out any other way. They eat lawngrass and for some reason, this makes them hurl. Presto, changeo, happy cats. Bad stuff gone.

I was thinking about the wonders of all this as I washed a cup when I suddenly remembered the other part of this equation, at least the way it plays out at our place. For a reason I cannot explain, the cats have designated our garage as their own personal vomitorium. They will drag themselves on their little cat knuckles and knees across the yard to make sure they make it inside the garage door before they hurl. I remembered this little wonderful fact of life as I stood at the sink and heard the telltale pre-hurl sounds every cat makes. They arch their back, and move their head as though possessed by a demon. They look like they are in need of an exorcism and not just a stomach purge.

Now, our garage floor is all concrete which makes cleaning up this lovely mess at least bearable. Soak the stuff in vinegar, take some paper towels, etc. But this is where it gets even freakier. We have one small carpet out there at the base of the steps which we use to keep our feet warm as we pull on our boots in winter. Apparently, in this game of Curling (my name for Cat Hurling), there are extra points for the darling that can spew his innards on that little woven carpet from which puke is very hard to extract.

So, to recap, our lot comprises 7,854 square feet. To a cat that stands eight inches high, it must seem as though we own the Ponderosa. Acres of grass to chew. But, only one little place to toss the old cookies.

If it sounds as though I am complaining, don’t get me wrong: I meant to make it sound as though I am complaining. If I haven’t made myself clear, I hate cleaning up cat barf!

By Jim Hagarty
1994

I am no William Shakespeare or Noah Webster (of dictionary fame). I’ve been known to scramble up the English language with the best (or worst) of them. To this day, people check me up on words I’ve been using wrongly for a mere 35 years or so.

But I am also no Archie Bunker and I am shocked at the decline in the language skills of people nowadays. Especially in the language as it is spoken. And not just by kids. (Yes, I know. The last two sentences are not complete sentences. And kids are baby goats.)

Grown men and women, presumably people who might have developed better ways of speaking, have fallen into word-choice habits that cannot be explained. They can only be described. If these people eat like they talk, they must dribble a lot of food down the front of their shirts three times a day.

Take the word, “like.” In the old days, you might use it to say you were fond of something. Or to compare two things. But now, it is interjected into almost every sentence and by some people, even more often.

How many of us have not had to listen to someone who speaks this way:

“Like, it’s, like, the ugliest sweater I’ve ever seen, like, do you know what I mean?”

Or …

“The guy comes up to me, like, and he stands there, like, as if he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. And it starts to, like, freak me out.”

Now what, in these circumstances, does “like” mean? Beats me.

Then there is, “I mean”, meaning, who knows? I mean to say, perhaps?

“So, I mean, if I have to pay for the thing, I mean, give me a break! I meeeaaannn! Geez!”

Then, for the truly venturesome, there’s this special combo: “Like, I mean.”

“Like, I mean, who does she think she is? I saw him first. Like, I mean, wouldn’t you be a little upset too?”

Of course, there’s a ’90s substitute for, “I said, he said, she said.” It’s, “I go, he goes, she goes.”

“So I go, ‘Alright then. Leave. What do I care?’ And she goes, ‘Well, maybe I will’ and I go, ‘Fine. Suit yourself.”’ I have heard 45-year-old people use this last expression. Like, I meeeaaannn!!!

A little strange? Oh I don’t know. What would you say if I said there’s another popular way to say, “I said”?

“So, she comes running up to me and I’m, ‘Well? Where have you been?’ but when she turns to leave, I’m, ‘Hey wait! I didn’t mean that!”

To be even more elaborate, try adding the word, “all.”

“So, the teller gives me the wrong change and I’m all, ‘Hey. Wait a minute,’ and she’s all, ‘What’s the matter?’ as if she doesn’t know what’s wrong and the manager comes over and he’s all, ‘What’s going on here?”

When I die, I’ll know which place I’ve gone to if the first person I meet says to me:

“Like, I mean, is it hot today or what? Like, this bright red guy comes up to me and I go, ‘Whoa! Some sunburn!’ and he’s all, ‘Whaddya mean sunburn? I always look like this,’ and I’m like, ‘No kidding?’ and he goes, ‘Haven’t you ever seen a red guy with a tail before?’ and I’m like, I mean, flippin’ out and he’s like, smilin’ kinda weird and I go, ‘Nice horns.’”

I meeeaaannn!!!

May You Know What You Want
And Know What You Don’t
And Follow Your Heart
When Your Mind Says You Won’t
And Hear Your Soul’s Voices
And Make Peace With Your Choices

JH

By Jim Hagarty
1986

It’s a phenomenon stranger than jet lag the way a person’s nationality transforms itself in the air mid-way between America and the Old Country.

A few weeks before departure, an Ireland-bound young Canadian with Irish roots is, most positively, an Irishman. Sure, his thick, Irish accent’s lost a little in 150 years and he’s a few freckles shy of a faceful but he’s as Irish as whiskey, spuds and the colour green and eternally proud to call himself so.

“Yes, well, I’ve never actually been there before,” he tells you before he leaves, “but I know the country like the back of my hand. My ancestors were from there, of course, and I’ve been readin’, hearin’ and singin’ about Ireland all my life.”

But to the seatmate on the airplane, a “real” Irish native heading home for a visit to Dublin after three years in Toronto, our young traveller begins to confide his tremendous pride in his native Canada and before the five-hour flight is over, the conversation has switched from talk about Irish pubs, castles and cobblestones to Canadian landscape, history and hockey teams.

When both feet finally land on Irish soil for the first time, the proud young Irishman from Stratford, Ontario, turns suddenly as Canadian as Pierre Trudeau, Gordon Lightfoot and Anne of Green Gables. And to all the other natives of Ireland he meets over the next three weeks, he introduces himself, not as an Irishman, but as a Canadian.

Before the trip ends, though he loves the Emerald Isle even more now than he did in his dreams and his songs, he begins to miss home. Small things he longs for. Like a hot, dry sun on a dusty day in mid-July. Country music on the radio. The CBC National News. The sight of wide open fields and people with suntans.

Heading home, mid-Atlantic, le voyageur Canadien gets clunked again across the back of the noggin by the shillelagh of whatever leprechaun knocked the Irish out of him at about the same in-flight spot three weeks earlier and once again, he’s an Irishman.

Next night. Gathering of relatives. Guess what? There’s not a country on earth as beautiful as Ireland. People are the friendliest in the world. Food tastes best. Women are the prettiest. Singers are the finest. Music’s the most musical.

And get this. Can’t wait to go back.

He really can’t.

(Update 2018: The boy has been back to Ireland five times since he wrote this story.)

St. Patrick, after whom are named churches and schools in Ellice Township’s Kinkora and Hibbert Township’s Dublin in Canada, while he was a saint, was not above having “one of those days.” A particularly bad one occurred the day he climbed the steep hill up to the castle above the town of Cashel, Ireland, to baptize the king of that region. The baptism was supposed to be quite a coup for Pat. He reckoned, probably rightly so, that it’d be a cinch to get the natives to line up for baptism if he could get the king to agree to it. However, having climbed the hill, the aging man of religion was exhausted and took a breather at the top, resting his chin on his staff, the sharp point of which, went through the king’s foot. The king, normally murderous when dealing with people who hurt him, said nothing, believing the punctured foot was all part of the baptism ritual. The natives thought so too and took off running back to their heathen lives in the woods.

This all occurred in about the middle of the fifth century. The town, hill, castle and the rock the king lay across to be baptized – are still there. (Actually, the rock is a replica. The real one is in a museum.)

In a pub in Sligo, Ireland, I thought I’d open up a lively discussion by telling this friendly looking Irishman that near my home back in Canada, there is a village of 350 souls called Dublin. I picked the wrong guy to tell that to. Turned out he’s a postal worker from the original Dublin and he wasn’t much impressed. There are 13 Dublins in the world, he said, including one in Poland.

Dublin, however, is not the only Irish name in Perth County and area in Canada where I live and it’s a strange feeling to drive into towns and villages over there that bear the same names as here. Places such as Lucan, Listowel, Donegal, Palmerston, Carlingford, Tralee and Cromarty. And we saw a fancy home this nameplate on the gate: Kinckora House.

Have a grand St. Patrick’s Day.

May your feet always stay warm in bed.
May the dandruff all fall from your head.
May you find a thin dime in your pants
After getting home from the dance.
May you never slip in the tub
Or get caught as you pee on a shrub.
May your dog never barf in your shoe
Or your debtors ever catch up with you.
May you think for yourself every day
And do things your own goddamn way.
And if the Devil tries bringing you down
May he fall in a river and drown.

By Jim Hagarty
2016

So the sidewalk snowplow guy phoned the city snow department and told his boss he needed a new sidewalk plow.

“How wide are the sidewalks there Harrufus?”, asked the boss.

Harrufus Smith informed the Snow Man that the city sidewalks were 40 inches wide.

“Perfect,” responded his boss with a somewhat evil chuckle. “We’ll order you a new plow with a 60 inch blade.” Concerned, Harrufus said that the new plow would carve up 10 inches of sod on either side of the sidewalks and cause homeowners to run to the street, haul him out of the cab of the small tractor and pummel him half to death with their snow shovels.

“You leave that to me,” replied the demented Snow Man. “And Harrufus,” he ordered sternly. “Change that goofy name of yours.” So the poor sidewalk snowplow driver started using his new machine this week and changed his name to Harrufus Jones.”

Visitation for Harrufus is Monday from 2 to 4 p.m. Mrs. Smith-Jones requests monetary donations to the Neighbourhood Sidewalk Vigilance Committee in lieu of flowers.

Harrufus was a good man.

By Jim Hagarty
2006

I was busy just now scribbling down all the benefits of owning cats as house pets and, while l am not known for my lack of imagination, I have been able to come up with only one. In the 16 months since we adopted our two little homewreckers on paws, our mouse population has decreased by five. Cherubic as they can look when they want to, the truth is our cats are cold-blooded murderers. It’s a bit chilling to know you’re sharing your house with two creatures who kill for fun, but as long as they keep sending mice off to the great beyond, I am willing to let them spend as much time in the garage – the scene of most of their crimes – as they want.

So, the score is 5-2: We’ve lost five mice, but gained two cats. Also to be counted are the dozens of insects of every description which have found their way down the gullets of our two wily miscreants. Though entirely finished, our basement has always had its share of earwigs, spiders and those awful, wispy centipede-type thingies that make everyone’s skin crawl (though it is claimed they are somehow beneficial, consuming smaller grubs). Since the arrival of our tag team made up of Mario and Luigi, the bugs have mysteriously disappeared.

So, as pest controllers, our cats are an excellent investment. But they are seriously lacking in their housekeeping skills and seem intent on reducing the abode we took so many years to fix up, to a decrepit shack. This has prompted me, on more than one occasion, to grumble loudly, “They’re not living in a house; we’re living in a barn!”

Declarations such as these (and worse) elicit no sympathy from a family who, perversely, seem to delight in my cat-derived misery. But tell me, how would you like to have to spend an hour on a Sunday night duct-taping the lamps in your rec room to the wooden endtables on which they are supposed to sit because they are continually being knocked over? I’m going to be honest: I can think of better things to do.

Our cats are not large creatures, but in the past year, they have performed acts that seemed to be beyond their abilities to do. Cats are not supposed to be able to knock over coffee tables or shove the cushions off chesterfields and chairs. They can’t knock over stereo speakers that stand almost four feet high and while I can see a small lamp hitting the floor after they fly by it, large lamps, especially free-standing floor lamps, should be too much for them.

Heading to the rec room one afternoon after returning from work, I was concerned that our place might have been broken into and ransacked. Ransacked it was, but not broken into. Our inventory of wrecked household items post cat arrival is a long and sad one. It includes houseplants, library books (one of them a brand new, hardcover volume – one of our guys is a chewer), lampshades, one wooden endtable, one stereo speaker, posters, letters, bank statements, newspapers, magazines and other materials that don’t spring instantly to mind.

General destruction has involved carpeting, upholstery and solid pine doors which now are etched with lengthy cat scratches.

If a couple of thugs broke into our place and left it in shambles, we’d be devastated and would be on the phone to the police and insurance company. Instead, we’ve brought in our own demolition crew and we even haul in hundreds of pounds of food and cat litter to keep them going.

They live their days in luxury, and comfort; if they were human, they’d be serving time behind bars. And I would never visit them.