Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty
2015

I have been running this winter and trying to get my mile under the four minutes (just joking, the only thing of mine that runs is my nose), so I needed a timer. I dropped into my local surplus store and bought one. It doesn’t work. I opened it up to check the battery and a little piece of metal fell out.

Now this thing didn’t cost me much, so I threw the receipt in the recycling and was going to toss the timer in the e-waste bin next time I see one. But it kind of bugged me that it never worked even one time and never would.

The week went by and every day I thought about this. Would I dump out the recycling bins and search through the debris for the receipt? Or just let it go? I decided to let it go. Still …

This morning I hauled three large recycling bins (the ones on wheels with the lids) out to the curb and after the truck went by, I went out to bring them back in. The recycling guy had emptied all three and stacked them upside down, one on top of the other. I took them apart, set them back on their wheels, and prepared to pull them behind the house again. As always happens, a few stray recyclables were left behind on the ground. A couple of water bottle caps, a small advertising brochure and – a receipt. I turned over the little slip of paper and was shocked to see that it was the receipt for my crapped-out little timer. How in heck could this possibly be?

Things like this don’t happen to me often, but when they do, they drive me nuts. Those three bins were jam packed with recyclables of every description including fine paper by the fistful and so many receipts it was embarrassing. In our family, we apparently like to buy things. But in this instance, even the consumer gods were disturbed that I had been ripped off for the price of a timer and weren’t going to let me get away with not taking it back.

So tomorrow morning, timer and rumpled receipt in hand, I will be back in the store, righting the great wrong that has the Universe so upset it left me a giant clue showing how it felt about it.

By the way, the timer cost $1.99 plus tax. I don’t know why it was a piece of junk.

By Jim Hagarty
2006

There has been a lot of griping these past few weeks about the 25 per cent raise (and increase in benefits, pension, etc.) that our members of the Ontario legislature voted themselves as an early Christmas present. I use the word “griping” because I simply don’t think it’s fair to hold a little pay hike against these hard-working folks who only want to keep up with their hard-working cousins – the MPs in Ottawa. I can’t remember who exactly it was that the MPs were only trying to keep up with when they voted themselves a tidy raise a couple of years ago but who cares? Well deserved, I say. Every penny (and $144,000) of it.

Objectors have said, as critics will always say, that these people knew what the pay levels were going into the job and shouldn’t have started complaining about them after they’d won a seat in the Legislature but to that, I say, “Pshaw!” and I do not throw around pshaws willy nilly. I think it’s just fortunate that we have elected people who had the intelligence to see that they were grossly underpaid and the fortitude to make things right.

With the municipal elections out of the way, and everyone settled into a nice, four-year mandate from the people, my prediction is there will be a raid on the cookie jar early into this new term. Phone me up and scold me heartily if Stratford’s new councillors don’t realize sometime within the next 12 months that they’re working way too hard for too little pay and set about to do something to rectify the injustice.

I say, “Go for it!” No, you won’t find me complaining about any of it. And I think those who are whining are looking at things through the wrong end of the telescope. The reason these raises annoy anyone at all is that they stick out like a sore thumb. They are way too obvious. What is needed is some sort of diversion that would keep politicians’ raises on the back pages of the papers, if they made the news at all.

I propose the following and I think it should go a long way towards quelling this and all future similar uproars. People complain that the reason this comes about every so often is because politicians have the ability to vote themselves pay hikes where the rest of us don’t. We are not likely to wrest the power to line their own pockets away from our governors so why waste time going down that road? Instead, a more profitable direction to head in would be, it seems to me, in giving all the rest of us the ability to determine our own compensation levels. According to our occupations, we could compare ourselves to some other group that is earning more than we are and take a vote in the office to raise our salaries accordingly. We’ll call it leap-frog pay hiking and make a game of it.

In the case of the newspaper I work for, we will simply phone around, find out what all the other journalists in Canada are making, draw up a big grid and chart showing us at number 72 out of 100 and vote ourselves a 35 per cent pay hike to bring us into line with the upper scales, where we belong. We will then forward the news on to our employer that as of such and such a date, our salaries will be increasing. Then, we will wait for the raises to kick in.

Sector by sector, job by job. This could be the way of the future.

And for those on social assistance who seem most distressed at having been thrown a three per cent bone while the throwers gave themselves 25 per cent, hang on. This system will work for you too. Just get together, vote yourself whatever it is you need, send a note to the government and voila! Problem solved. The only shame is that this idea didn’t occur to me sooner. It would have spared us all so much heartache.

In fact, I believe I will take the initiative and vote myself a bonus for dreaming up such a wildly promising plan.

By Jim Hagarty
2014
This morning’s headline: Yogurt-eating mice found to have larger testicles. A few questions: Who left the yogurt out and then who first noticed a mouse run by and commented, “Look at the set on that guy. Holy mackerel!” To liven up the story, these are elderly mice. So these old guys are chowing down on yogurt and literally, growing a pair. Which begs one more query: When you see a mouse, can you tell its age immediately? Does an old one have grey hair, bald patches and a belly? Does it have trouble hearing the cat sneak up on it? This is all too much for me except for the uncomfortable feeling that my taxes are paying somebody to figure all this out. Oh well, back to my yogurt.

By Jim Hagarty
1992

Don’t look now, but you may just be suffering from the February blahs.

This would explain why the dog runs behind the furnace and stays there when he hears you coming home from work and why your spouse asked you at supper last night if you know anything about separation agreements.

The remedies for this annual condition are many and varied but of course, nothing works so well in getting rid of the February blahs as getting rid of February. This will happen tomorrow at midnight so try to hang on until then, fellow sufferers.

Many people, of course, never get the mid-winter blahs. These are the ones with the perfect attitudes to life, the ones who are always thinking only of others, the ones who see the good in everything. You know – the saints. The first step in getting rid of the blahs is to stay away from the people who never get them. Also, stay away from the people who do get them. What I’m trying to say is, you’re going to have to work this out on your own.

But, the first step in getting rid of the blahs is recognizing that you do, in fact, have them. It isn’t easy, sometimes. But here are several ways of knowing if February has had you by the throat for the past 28 days and has been choking the happiness out of you.

If you answer “yes” to three or more of the following 10 statements, you have been Februaried. Apply remedial measures immediately.

1. Every time I see a politician’s worried face on TV, I want to start crying.
   Yes. No.

2. I don’t bother looking up from my magazine when The Making of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition comes on the TV.
   Yes. No.

3. I buy some clothes hangers at the department store and I don’t even bother complaining about the tax to the cashier.
   Yes. No.

4. I don’t bother with a second piece of lemon meringue pie because it would mean I’d have to get off my chair and go all they way over there to get it.
   Yes. No.

5. Fellow workers ask me on Monday morning what I did on the weekend and I can’t even remember.
   Yes. No.

6. I watch awards programs on TV and find the acceptance speeches interesting.
   Yes. No.

7. Someone yells, “Look, Sinead O’Connor’s growing hair” and I don’t even bother glancing over at the TV to see what she looks like.
   Yes. No.

8. I can’t wait for the sun to go down so I can go to bed.
   Yes. No.

9. I read articles on life in Russia and find myself secretly thinking how great it would be to live there.
   Yes. No.

10. Someone says, “It’ll be another month before Ice Cream King opens again” and I burst into tears.
    Yes. No.

Scoring: If you marked “yes” less than three times – redeem this form for a shiny new halo; between three and seven – stay away from me; more than seven – you’ll get used to the hospital food after awhile.

By Jim Hagarty
2012

My daughter has an app on her phone that lets you take a picture of someone and then ages that image somehow to make the person look old. She showed me the photo she took of herself and it’s amazing. Her 14-year-old face was all wrinkly and drawn, her long dark hair was gray. It’s kind of creepy because it’s a still image and yet the eyes blink and it looks like it’s moving.

So we laughed and got all excited and I asked her if she wanted to try it on me. Of course she did, so she snapped a picture and excitedly, we looked at the result. Absolute truth here. I looked exactly the same in the “aged” photo as I do in real life. We could not find one difference. If anything, it made me look a little younger.

So, we laughed about that, I guess.

Then she showed me another app that makes you look fat. She took a picture of herself and sure enough, her cheeks and neck were all puffed out. And, again creepily, her eyes blinked. “Wanna try it Dad?” My first reaction was that ya, that would be cool. Then I remembered the first picture and I declined. Once bitten, twice shy.

Bring me an app that makes me look young and thin, and I’m in.

Everyone wants to be remembered
By people that we leave behind
And we’d like them to remember us
With thoughts that are pleasant and kind.

We hope those we have offended
Forget the offence and forgive.
We want to be recalled as someone
Who knew how to live and let live.

We hope someone thinks our life mattered.
We hope they have stories to share
About how now and then we attempted
To be selfless and loving and fair.

We hope we made an impression
On a few that we met on the way
And that those who reflect on our passing
Have a fond word or two they can say.

• Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
1990

With so much turmoil dominating the news, it’s easy to miss other important stories taking place in the world.

One of those is the success Agriculture Canada scientists are having cloning cattle. After years of research, trial and error, they’re now close to perfecting a method of splitting cow embryos so they can reproduce in the lab almost any number of exactly identical cows they like. Already, three such cows and one bull have been cloned. And experts say there’s no reason this process shouldn’t work with other species of animals, including humans.

This development down the road of technological innovation, it seems to me, is a bit scary. How long will it be before a tyrant takes his fiercest, most able soldier and clones himself a million-man army of identical fighters? Or clones a couple hundred identical replicas of himself to take over leadership in the lands he conquers?

But there are other concerns.

In the United States, scientists have ventured even further in genetic manipulation than we have in Canada. According to Canadian Press: “Last month scientists in Texas announced they had produced genetically engineered calves by inserting genes from foreign species into fertilized eggs from cows. The foreign genes included one from humans. Researchers hope the additional genes will speed growth and make the cattle leaner.”

So, move over God, we’ve truly arrived at the time when we can produce designer animals. We can mix ’em up in a bowl like our favourite pies, pour them out on a tray, cook ’em and presto: instant horse, cow, dog, etc. We will be able to make them look like we want them to look, run as fast as we want them to run, even live as long as we want them to live by adding desirable genes from other animals.

What we may eventually get, by adding human genes to animals, for example, are cows that speak to their owners: “More hay over here, please!” Or cows that milk themselves.

And call themselves in from the fields.

But if we can add human genes and characteristics to animals so easily, the more frightening prospect is the certainty that soon we will be able to add non-human genes to humans. So, when we want to develop invincible high-speed runners, we’ll take a human embryo into the lab and throw in a little racehorse. When we want to raise the meanest, toughest professional wrestler around, we’ll toss a couple of pinches of gorilla into the bowl. (Watching some of them on TV, it’s open to question whether or not this has already been done.) On and on it could go. To develop long-distance swimmers, we’ll throw in some fish. For workers to develop that cold Antarctic continent, we’ll patch in some polar bear and penguin.

All this cloning and mingling of human and animal is bound to lead to many strange and frightening sights. Like pigs driving tractors and planting their own crops. And people with fins and gills who won’t need scuba gear to go take a look at the Titanic.

But now for the good news. Before your cute little Muffy’s born, the vet will bag up a few extra embryos for you which you can toss in the freezer. And when your precious little pet wanders out in front of that Mack truck, there’ll be no need to feel bad for long. You’ll just go back in the house, reach in your freezer and pop another Muffy into the microwave.

In fact, Muffy, probably part human anyway, may do the same for you when you go.

And some day in this crossbreeding future world, when someone angrily calls you a pig or a jackass, they might not be all that far off the truth.

Writers, of course, are leading the way as most of us already have some bull in us.