Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty
2016

A year ago, in an effort to improve the performance of my little Acer netbook, I dipsied when I should have doodled, I guess, and the good machine, which had served me well for a few years, just up and quit. And by quit, I mean it would no longer turn on. The monitor was black and permanently so, it seemed. In fact, I listened carefully but could not even detect the telltale whirring of the hard drive.

I spent a few frantic weeks trying to get the little creature breathing again but it was done.

So, I did as I always do, and paid a visit to the Church of Google to pray and seek counsel. Nothing but Hell and Damnation from the adherents of the Church. I had fried the little bugger and would see it alive no more. I didn’t find even one Internet self-described techie who would offer me any encouragement.

With a heavy heart one day I took my netbook out to the garage and put it up high on a shelf. The garage is the cellblock where the doomed await the death penalty. I relegate all our old broken down tech things to a box and when it gets full, I cart the whole affair to the local e-waste depot and sob as I leave it all there.

I have made one of those trips since the netbook was quarantined but for some reason, I didn’t toss it in the box.

So for months, it has sat alone on the shelf in the garage, quietly awaiting its fate.

Yesterday, however, I took it down and brought it back into the house. Off and on throughout the day, I wandered over to it and tried every single thing I could think of with not even a whisper of success. I even spread out both hands and pressed down every key on the keyboard while it was starting up.

Nothing.

However, some progress. The hard drive was obviously whirring away again but I had no idea what I had done to make that happen.

And then, the monitor started glowing, a very low light, but the extreme CPR must have shook something loose. But the glow stopped and now I was frantic to get it back. I couldn’t possibly lose my patient for a second time.

Finally, I held down the two mouse buttons while pressing the on switch.

The computer started back up again just as it always had before my intervention of a year ago. For 24 hours now, it has worked as well as it ever did.

I have always hated to admit defeat. I have admitted defeat lots of times. But I have always hated to.

But about the only benefit to having an obsessive personality is the burst of joy that comes over you when all your crazy single mindedness is rewarded now and then.

I am feeling very Steve Jobsian tonight.

Yay!

By Jim Hagarty
2013

Every night I walk down Oxford Street past a factory that takes up an entire city block.

Half that space is parking lot, storage for trucks, etc., and the other half is this great building that looks like what I imagine the largest ship in the sea must look like at night. Lights everywhere, inside and out. And the noise that comes from the open windows is a calming, nice sound, not jarring at all. It is the sound of human beings making things. From stacks on the roof rises some sort of mist, whether smoke or steam, I can’t tell. But that just makes it even more like an old ship.

On the grounds outside under a bunch of young trees is a picnic table and on nice evenings there are usually workers on their breaks, laughing, having a cigarette, eating a snack. It makes me feel good to see this scene every night as I march by on my life-saving trek.

I worked in a couple of factories when I was young and I have to say, I don’t think I had the pleasant feelings about them that I do about the factory near my home in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. And it makes me feel bad that come the end of this year, this big, beautiful ship will be pulling into the harbour for the last time, never to go sailing again.

FRAM, which makes auto filters, has been in Stratford for longer than I’ve been alive but you know how it goes – bought by a big company a few years ago and we all know what big companies do. They go where they can pay people less and where the environmental rules are more lax, in this case, Tennessee and Mexico.

What a shame for the people who will be left behind by these profit-seeking nomads. My neighbour across the street has worked there for years but she saw the writing on the wall a long time ago and has been preparing for a second career. Still, you can tell she’d rather not have to move on.

And soon I’ll have to walk by a big darkened building and watch the windows get smashed one by one and the graffiti appear along with the grass in the cracks of the parking lot pavement. And no more smokers at their picnic table. Some of those women were not too hard on the eyes. (I didn’t just write that.)

But the only thing that never changes is that everything always changes so I guess I’ll just have to suck it up and keep on walking and not dying.

(Update 2016: The factory was torn down, in remarkably short order, given the size and sturdiness of it. Out of the ashes has arisen a construction company headquarters, an emergency vehicles centre, and an impressive new medical centre. There is lots of land left and there is talk of apartment buildings and perhaps a small commercial strip. Like a wild animal carcass, every bone and sinew has been picked clean, nothing was wasted. When everything is completed, the developer, who always does fine work, will have given the community a wonderful replacement for the old factory. But here’s a bit of irony. I have heard reports that car makers are not happy with the filters coming out of Tennessee and Mexico.)

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

If you want an hour of sheer fright.
Go upstairs in an old barn at night.
Leave your flashlight behind.
You’ll go out of your mind.
No one will get you, but they might.

By Jim Hagarty
Here is me, warbling away into my little digital recorder. This song, To Make You Feel My Love, was written by Bob Dylan and made famous, first by Garth Brooks, and then by Adele.

By Jim Hagarty
1988

It’s a great mystery to me why mankind is still plagued with so many problems when science and technology have given us so many solutions. And at such affordable prices.

Why, for example, are there still people who do not have a full, thick head of hair when the Helsinki Formula could grow them a new crop overnight? At a laughably low cost.

Why do we humans put up with sagging bodies and spirits, annoying aches and pains, lonely hearts, financial crises and a host of other troubles when for a very few dollars we could clear up all these woes for good? And clear them up in record time.

Some will say life is problems. To live is to suffer. No pain, no gain. These are people who have not opened their eyes. Opened them up to the ads in the supermarket tabloids.

Just see if most of what’s bugging you couldn’t be cleared up with a small investment in some of the following devices, cures and formulas, promoted in a publication I picked up this week.

Eyes puff out like pillows? “No more under-eye puffiness. Look years younger by using Eye Puffiness Minimizer. Only $6.99.”

Hair limp and wimpy? “Your hair can be longer, stronger and thicker in just one week. ‘Hairlong’ protein lotion is actually sucked up by each individual hair to strengthen and thicken your hair up to 36 per cent more. Only $4.90.”

Friends, Romans, countrymen won’t lend you their ears? “How to make others secretly do your bidding with the astonishing power of Automatic Mind Command. How to get started in just three minutes is all contained in The Miracle of Psycho-Command Power. Only $12.95.”

Face sagging like a sack full of earthworms? “Playboy model Vikki LaMotta offers you her 90-second facelift. Free. Only $19.95.”

Cash flow down to a trickle? “I make people into lottery millionaires. Now I want to make you and 99 others millionaires too. Only $1.”

Blimping out, are we? “I lost 54 pounds without dieting and look and feel great. New! Super-fast Japanese fat-reducing pill just released. Results 100 per cent guaranteed. Only $19.95.”

Hurtin’ all over? “Micro Magnets. New miraculous pain-relieving therapy. Drug free. No side effects. Only $19.95.”

Eyes like prunes? “Miracle Sunglasses stop eye wrinkles. Secret coating blocks dangerous UV rays. (Warning: Cheap Fakes May Be Available.) Only $9.95.”

Rover smellin’ like an backhouse on fire? “Pet Perfume. Because pets have a right to smell pretty too. Only $5.”

Mugged and miserable? “Rape. Robbery. Murder. Don’t be next! Protect yourself with The Guardian. A harmless looking flashlight that will render any attacker helpless. Only $19.95.”

Single and sorry? “You will be married in less than a year. Only $9.95.”

Packed with pickin’ potential? “Play guitar in seven days. Or money back. Only $6.98.”

Gut got you grumpy? “Flatten your stomach in four-and-a-half minutes. Guaranteed. No pills. No diets. Only $9.95.”

Need a miracle? “I will cast a spell for you. Tell Andreika what you want. (One spell at a time). Only $13.50.”

Perennial loser? “Crack the lottery in 10 seconds flat. Only $5.”
You see? Now, what’re you waitin’ for? Get those money orders in the mail.

And if you want to really shoot for the top, what the heck? Try this one. “You can become a super-being. By following simple instructions, everything you desire will materialize instantly. Just snap your fingers and count one, two, three. Order, Unseen Kingdoms. Only $11.95.”

I bet you’re feelin’ better already. Sure you are.

That’ll be $5.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

I once had a tapeworm named Finn.
He really got under my skin.
He ate all my food
But I got him good.
He drowned when I swallowed some gin.