Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty

There is a country song about a singer who is driving along near Montgomery, Alabama, when he spies a hitchhiker by the side of the road. A long, lanky fellow in a cowboy hat.

The driver pulls over to pick him up. The grateful passenger is Hank Williams. Fifty years after the country music icon died in the back seat of his car.

A similar thing happened to me today.

I never met my Grandpa. He died in 1950, a few months before I was born.

But there, on the side of the road, was a hitchhiker. A thin man of medium build, dressed in what seemed like Sunday clothes, wearing a neat straw hat.

I pulled over and was soon astonished that the man was my Grandfather. It was quite an experience. He was startled too to become acquainted with the grandson who had picked him up.

“Where are you heading?” I asked him. He gave me an address. I wasn’t familiar with the place. I pulled out my iPhone.

“Just wait a minute. I will enter the address in Google Maps.”

“In what?” he asked.

I tried to explain. He was fascinated with the little device I held in my hands.

“Do you mind if I go through the drivethrough?” I asked my ancestor.

“What is a drivethrough?” he asked.

He didn’t want anything. I ordered a drink at the restaurant speaker. He was startled when a voice took my order.

I was handed a paper cup at the window. I explained it contained coffee.

“In a cup made of paper?” he asked.

We drove along. A female voice on my phone told me to turn right, turn left.

Then the phone made a strange sound.

“Hey, I just got a text,” I said.

“A what?” asked my forebear.

I pulled over to answer the text. And an email that had also come in.

Then the phone rang. Grandpa was startled. I answered the call. He knew what a telephone was, but had never seen one not attached to a wall and a receiver that didn’t have a cord.

We drove a few more miles. I pulled over again.

“Do you mind if I check my bank balance?” I asked.

“That’s fine,” said Grandpa. “But where are you going to find a bank around here? And it’s Saturday. They are all closed.”

“No,” I laughed. “I will check it on my phone.”

After that, I showed him a video of two puppies chasing a tennis ball. He turned white. He had died eight years before the farmhouse he had built was outfitted with its first black and white TV. He had never heard the term TV.

We started driving again.

“Do you mind if I pop in a CD?” I asked my grandfather.

“A what?”

Music boomed out of the car speakers. He jumped a bit in his seat. I turned off the music.

We drove along in silence for a while, then I pulled into a gas station to fill up. I started getting out of the car.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Don’t worry,” I answered. I walked up to a big machine, stuck my card in a slot, removed the pump handle and filled up my tank. Replaced the handle, got back in the car, and started to drive away.

“Don’t you have to pay for that gas?” asked Grandpa.

“I already did,” I replied.

We drove along. I pressed a button and rolled down the windows. It was a hot day. The sight of the windows going down on their own surprised my Grandfather.

We passed a Chevy Volt as we drove along.

“Why is that car moving but not making a sound?” asked Grandfather.

I started to explain about electric cars.

He interrupted me.

“Could you let me off at the next corner?” he asked me.

I pulled over. Said a painful goodbye. He got out.

As I drove away, I saw him looking astonished at a young man who went whizzing by him on a motorized skateboard.

I put the CD back in.

“I’m so lonesome, I could cry,” sang Hank Williams.

A tear ran down my cheek.

By Jim Hagarty

I’m not sure what the job description for a humour writer might be, if one was ever written, but it would probably contain some fuzzy stuff such as “observes human behaviour and characteristics and comments humourously on the data collected by such examinations.” A more simply stated directive might say, “Pokes fun at everybody.” An even briefer outline would be, “Class clown.”

Having written humour for several decades now, I know a little of which I speak. I have come to the conclusion that we humour writers are incredibly insecure and spend our lives looking for laughs wherever we can find them. In the process, we develop a few human characteristics of our own.

First of all, we have egos the size of cathedrals. This translates onto the page as an almost insufferable superiority, albeit one that is skilfully hidden, lest our readers think us to be pompous. Our basic premise is this, however: anyone who thinks, acts, or looks differently from us, is a perfect candidate for our ridicule because, basically, to have the nerve to have ways that are not similar to our own is to be hopelessly wrong.

This is why becoming educated is a poor career move for a humour writer because as he discovers the real reasons why others are the way they are, he will inevitably lose his appetite for putting them down. And therefore, his “edge.”

The second main thing to know about the breed known as the humourist is that we were born without a conscience. There is almost no situation in life that we will consider off limits for mockery, whether it be religion, poverty, marriage or terminal illness. In fact, we love to laugh at death. The truth is, it scares the life out of us. As does marriage, religion and the prospect of poverty.

We are the original whistlers past the graveyard.

Finally, the most significant thing to know about the humour writer is that absolutely everyone we meet, sooner or later, will come into our sights. Our targets include wives, children, co-workers, friends, pets – basically any living thing that makes the mistake of wandering into our view. When one of them objects to being pummelled in print, we react with hostility, “Learn to take a joke, will ya!”

I had reason to be reminded of this last point recently when I had coffee with an old friend who is a humour writer like me. I hadn’t seen him in a while and as we sat down in the coffee shop, I removed my cap. As I did, I noticed his eyes fix in some surprise on the top of my head and his eyebrows shoot up as he noticed how completely hairless my scalp had become since our last get-together. I knew what he was doing and thinking, as I, like him, am a keen observer of my fellow humans.

I thought nothing more of it at the time, but I might have guessed the outcome of his consternation at my clear-cut cranium had I mused on it a while.

Six days later, my mouth dropped open as I read a column by my friend on the subject of male baldness and the various steps he has noticed his balding friends are taking to either cover up or cope with their condition.
My friend, of course, has a full head of hair, and so, inevitably, would find much mirth in those around him who aren’t so follicly endowed.

Had I been betrayed?

Not really.

More like repaid.

And educated.

“So, that’s how it feels,” I thought. It wasn’t the end of the world. My name wasn’t in print for all to see.

But the incident reminded me about two other features of the class clown.

We are painfully thin-skinned, better at giving it than taking it.

And we often sat alone at lunch in the school cafeteria.

If you doubt the truth of any of this, consider the fact that I have just written about my “friend” who wrote about me.

Humour writing, after all, is also primarily about getting the last word.

By Jim Hagarty

My brain would be a lot happier if it didn’t have Thoughts in it.

I have met a few people in my life who have no Thoughts in their brains and I have to say, they seem downright blissful.

Thoughts are a bunch of undisciplined ruffians. They go where they want, do what they want. They remind me of some of the students I had when I was teaching college. Those students loved anarchy. What they didn’t love was listening to a bespectacled, balding, old guy who wore threadbare blazers and tired old Hush Puppies.

Sometimes Thoughts co-operate and it’s wonderful. Your wedding day. “Hooray!” say Thoughts. Or a lottery win. I once won four free pitchers of beer in the Lucan hotel. My Thoughts were over the moon about that till everyone in the pub came over and drank the four pitchers dry.

But mostly, Thoughts love to wander. And they like to go where they are not welcome. Especially into lands filled with forbidden fruit trees.

Sometimes, they hike off for a day to the Past. The adventure might start off all right, but they soon get bogged down when they run into the three-headed demon known as Regret, Remorse and Resentment.

But the land Thoughts most like to occupy is the Future. The Future is like the planet Mars. You know it exists. You’ve seen the pictures. You can even catch a glimpse of it sometimes in the night sky. But like Mars, no human has ever set foot in the Future, and my guess is, no one ever will.

But that doesn’t stop Thoughts. I don’t personally see the attraction, but Thoughts just love to play around in the Future. Must be the adrenalin rush. Because they aren’t there very long until they run into an even scarier three-headed monster: Fear, Terror and Panic.

It’s damn hard to keep Thoughts at home where they belong. Home is the Present. And like any home, I guess, it can be a bit boring, maybe even messy. It is often the place where Excitement goes to die.

Now and then, exhausted from their scary journeys into Forbidden Lands, perhaps, Thoughts will park it in the leather recliner and be happy to take a day off.

Brain is forever grateful for those times.

I don’t know where they get their energy, because Thoughts rarely sleep.

They’re too busy planning their next roller coaster ride.

By Jim Hagarty

I started a blog two weeks ago to entertain the masses.

And to make money.

So I did an Internet search on how to start a blog.

Mission accomplished.

Then I did some more searching, this time on how to make money from a blog. Imagine my surprise: There are a million ways. Or are there?

I finally settled on the words of advice from a blogger who makes $100,000 a month. That is a nice round figure, I thought, and he seemed pretty humble. So I became his disciple.

There were sites I found by people who make many times more than $100,000 a month but I am not a greedy man. I can get by on $1,200,000 a year.

My guru had 20 suggestions. I looked them over carefully. They seemed to make sense.

His biggest pearl of wisdom came when he discussed his opinion that the riches won’t come from the blog itself. Instead, they will happen as a result of what I am able to sell on my blog. And what I need to sell is my expertise.

I need to think of myself as a teacher. Imagine what it is my readership needs, assess what it is I have expertise in, and then match those two things up.

Expertise. Hmmm.

I took an hour out of my day and just sat and thought about my expertise. What is it, I asked myself, that I am an expert in? What things do I know that many people don’t know and how can I align that knowledge with the needs my readers have?

My brain started doing its brain thing. The session extended into a second hour. I encountered some difficulty in singling out something I know that most people don’t know and need to know.

Ideas started to come. I know how to prevent my breakfast cereal from becoming soggy. (Hint: Pour the milk in the bowl first, then the cereal.)

I know that the best way to trim your fingernails is to use a toenail clippers.

Good ideas, I knew they were, but the wheels ground to a halt.

Then, jackpot!

This winter I discovered how to easily peel that pesky free coffee sticker off the side of a McDonald’s coffee cup. Without giving too much of the secret away, the answer is to peel it off while the coffee is still inside the cup. The hot coffee melts the wax holding the sticker to the cardboard.

I was elated.

Following my guru’s next steps, I am going to write an e-book about easy sticker removals and post that for sale on my blog.

I will compound that success by coming up with a beautiful, hardcover, coffeetable version of the e-book. I will sell it for $29.95. Correction: $39.95.

Third, I will organize a speaking tour about the subject of sticker peeling.

Fourth, a YouTube video.

And finally, I will offer courses on the subject. On-line and off. The eight-week, real in-person course will cost students $599.00. Correction: $799.00. And bring your own McDonald’s coffee cup, contents still inside.

I was over at the local Chevy dealer today. They have two new Corvettes in the lot. One cherry red, one silver. I can’t decide which one to get.

Ah, what the hell?

I’m going to get both of them.

By Jim Hagarty

I don’t speak cat and can’t understand cat speak.

I am even worse when it comes to cat typing.

My cat Luigi just walked across my keyboard and this is what he wrote: “hjyunuyjuhk”.

Anyone fluent in Catlish might be able to help me out. Drop me a note if you understand what this means.

The best I can come up with, based on 10 years of close association with Luigi, is: “gotnokibble”.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There once was a bug named Fred
Who burrowed down deep in my bed.
A long fart in my sleep.
Now from Fred, not a peep.
I believe the wee fellow is dead.

The battery in one of our smoke alarms needed changing one night and so I went out and bought a new nine-volt battery (the small rectangular one with both the negative and positive poles at the same end) and prepared to fix up the little lifesaver on the ceiling.

However, as often happens, I got myself distracted at something else – probably refereeing a battle between our dog and cats or pausing to check my email at the sound of the ding – and so I slipped the battery into the pocket of my jeans and attended to whatever emergency had come up.

I walked around with battery in pocket for a while before remembering the important job that awaited. Reaching my hand into my pocket, I retrieved the little power producer only to feel my fingers burning at something scorchingly hot in my pants. Literally hot and not just sexy as per usual.

Basic instinct (ahem) took over and I quickly dropped my pants right there and then in the middle of the living room. Fortunately, my wife and kids were in bed asleep and so were not witness to the sudden private party I was apparently engaged in around midnight on this particular Wednesday.

My action may have been a bit rash but I have always lived by a policy which commands me to instantly remove my pants whenever they catch on fire. In this case, the garment hadn’t actually ignited but whatever had happened, there was far more than the normal amount of heat in the place where I usually keep only a few coins and the occasional jelly bean.

Coins, battery. Aha! I shook out my jeans and sure enough, out fell the battery followed by a few quarters.

Now, in one of the few times I can remember my high school education coming in handy, I was able to put two and two together. One or more of the coins had come to rest against the two battery poles, opening up a current. In a few minutes, the charge had raced around that battery and coins so rapidly that it not only heated up the whole affair, but completely drained the battery of its energy in the process.

I scooped up the battery with a plastic dustpan and flung it out into the garage. I checked it next day and as I thought it might be, it was completely spent. How ironic, I thought later, that I could have lost my life trying to repair the device that was designed to save it.

So the next time your friendly neighbourhood flasher drops his pants outside your picture window, check to see he doesn’t have a battery in his pocket before you call the cops.

©2016 Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty

It had been kickin’ around the house for almost 20 years, an old family fiddle that just sort of ended up at our place.

Sealed in a sturdy steel case, it was brought out now and then to be admired, but quickly locked away again for the next time someone became curious enough to snap back the clasps. From one corner to the other, the charming little instrument spent its days and nights silently, within the darkness of its velvet-lined confines, ignored, if not totally unloved. It had gone into a temporary sleep around the same time its owner took up the rest of a more permanent kind.

Then one day recently, with some time on my hands, I thought I’d examine the old music maker to see what it was really like. I had heard somewhere along the way that it was just an inexpensive model, and so I never was able to work up much enthusiasm about it. I don’t play the fiddle, though I’ve always sort of wanted to and maybe now was the time…

Opening the slightly battered case, I breathed in a whiff of mustiness, and instantly wished that, cheap or not, the fiddle had been in the open air all these years. I took the shapely, little brown box upstairs and grabbing the bow, scratched away on its out-of-tune strings with all the precision of a novice skater, taking his first spin across the ice. It was not pretty and metaphorically speaking, I fell on my head and butt several times in quick succession.

To the relief of my family, I finally put the bow away and turned my attention to exactly what kind of fiddle I was holding. Knowing a bit about the heirarchy of acoustic guitars, I figured the same sort of importance is probably attached to when, where and by whom a fiddle was made. So, I took a squinty look through one of the wavy, musical-note cutouts in the top of the instrument and spelled out the first few letters I saw: “S-t-r-a-d…” I couldn’t see too well so I took it over to one of the lamps and holding it near the bulb, examined the details more closely. “Stradivarius” was most clearly written. “1713”

Now, I don’t know if it’s possible to take a stroke while looking through a hole in a fiddle, but I felt like one might be coming on. Had the Greater Power finally smiled down on my humble family with a plan to make the rest of our days on Earth a little bit easier? How many millions of dollars was I just then holding in my suddenly shaky hands? What should be my next move, in light of this discovery?

As if on cue, worries followed the jubilation. What if something happened to the “Strad” (as I have found out they are affectionately called) and we couldn’t collect? A house fire, a home invasion, other calamities.

And then there was the wider family. This being an heirloom of sorts, what portion of my good fortune should be shared with other members of the clan, people who obviously didn’t yet know about the riches I was about to be knee deep in. Was this even information that needed to be shared with relatives? Wouldn’t things be easier if I kept this to myself?

I took another look into the fiddles innards. “Antonius Stradivarius. facelbat Cremona 1713.”

This just kept getting better and better.

But in every crowd there is a spoiler. Someone just waiting to burst your bubble.

“Hey Dad, you might want to come take a look at this,” said my daughter, who had borrowed the fiddle for a look of her own.

I peeked again through the music note hole, this time looking just above the name of the acknowledged greatest violin maker of all time. There, looking back at me from their safe confines, were two other little words I had missed.

“Copy of” brought my dreams of riches and ease to an crushing end. As did the words just below the name of Anton’s hometown: “Made in West Germany.”

Now there wasn’t any West Germany in 1713 or even a Germany, for that matter. West Germany didn’t emerge until after the Second World War.
As usual, I am a wiser but sadder man.

Just once in this life I’d like to be the opposite – a foolish but happier man.

With a billion fiddle bucks in the bank!

Here’s me, warbling away in 1981. A song I wrote as a tribute to a friend.

Ain’t it Funny by Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty

Gun nuts take a lot of abuse from people who think they are, in a word, ridiculous.

As a sometimes commenter, I have had some fun with the species myself. But what is a cynic supposed to do? Ignore the story about the man who shot his mother by accident during a church service (she lived)? Or the man who shot himself in the penis while driving down the road? Am I just supposed to let that go? Really?

But underneath all my mirth-making at the ammosexuals’ expense, I have to admit I have a certain admiration for the toughness of some of these gun-toting hombres. I grew up with a gun on the farm and used it many times. I must have a certain amount of respect lingering in the depths of my soul for the gun carriers of the world.

Some of these men and women are no shrinking violets.

Take the 37-year-old Florida man who only noticed he’d been shot while cleaning his revolver two days later when he changed from a black shirt to a brown one and discovered a blood stain from his wound.

Reuters has reported the bullet pierced Michael Blevins’ skin and muscle before exiting his body while he was cleaning the gun in his living room on Thursday.

The Deltona, Florida man loaded the gun while resting it on his chest so his dog wouldn’t jump on it, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.

Blevins told police he fell when his back gave out due to an old injury, struck his head on a table, and accidentally fired the weapon. Between the pain medication he takes for the injury and bumping his head, he was likely distracted from feeling the gunshot, the police report said

He was treated at a local hospital on Saturday, where staff reported the incident to law enforcement.

Maybe, however, this old adage applies in this case: No sense, no feeling.

Any time I have accidentally shot myself, I’ll tell you something. I knew it right away. I’m kind of wimpy that way.

Dang!