Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom (And Whimsy)

Posted on August 10, 2022 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with one comment

L.U.S.T.

 

“Slip slidin’ away,

Slip slidin’ away,

You know the nearer your destination,

The more you’re slip slidin’ away.

Slip Slidin’ Away – Paul Simon

Yes, indeed. It sure feels like the summer is “slip slidin’ away”. It has been a hot one too. I can’t ever recall so many days being above 30. Many days, it was suffocating with high humidity ever present. Trust me. After experiencing -53 in the north, I can hardly complain about the heat.

So, let’s cool things down a bit.

Some summer silliness.

Here are a few things that caught my attention in recent days that either made me smile or left me shaking my head.

I was heading to the city last week. I know that some of my readers are not intimately aware of the geography of my hometown of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. This is irrelevant. I was travelling south on West Street. That seems like a contradiction. There’s a set of traffic lights at the intersection of West Street and James Street. I stopped at the red light. Across the intersection, there was a guy travelling north on West. Without warning, he made a left turn on the red light. Now, if the hospital or the liquor store had been on James Street, I might have given this guy a pass. Why the big hurry, you might be wondering? He was rushing to get into the mammoth lineup at the drive through at Tim Horton’s which, by the way, is directly across the street from the RCMP station. This man was risking a fine in the hundreds of dollars so that he could sit idling his car for several minutes to get his precious double double.

I try to be a charitable man. I know a handful of people who have never uttered a bad word about anyone in their entire lives. I greatly admire people like this even if I think that they secretly seethe at stupidity. Several words popped into my head as I witnessed this act of lunacy. Some of them are not fit to print. I came to the conclusion that this unfortunate soul must have had a challenging time in high school. His three most difficult years were grade 9.

Several weeks ago, before I went on my summer hiatus, I declared openly that I was no longer a Costco virgin, having taken out a membership at the Dartmouth Crossing outlet. I travelled to the city last week and with time on my hands, I decided to meander over to Costco to pick up a few things. I sadly report that one of these items was a new (and slightly larger) belt. It appears that the heat and humidity had caused my regular belt to shrink. If you believe in that, you also probably bought some crypto currency when it was cruising along at $68,000 per bitcoin last November thinking that it could only go higher. It’s around $31,000 these days.

Because I had had an early start to the day, I was a bit peckish when I arrived at the store around 10:30. It’s never a good idea to shop on an empty stomach especially when most of my purchases that day were food. I am utterly embarrassed to confess this, but I went to the food court and bought one of Costco’s famous large hotdogs and a Pepsi for $1.50. I am almost certain that I have never (knowingly) consumed a hot dog and a soft drink this early in the day.

I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day. His girlfriend was cat sitting for a friend. He was on holidays at the time and his girlfriend invited him to spend a few days with her. Being a true gentleman, early in the morning of the second day, he was in the kitchen making coffee for his beautiful friend. Smelling the coffee, she emerged from the bedroom. “Good morning, sweetheart.” My friend had his back to her, but her words were sweet music. He was feeling quite chuffed at her admission of affection. He thanked her for her loving words which elicited a huge guffaw. “I was talking to the cat, you fool.”

I now own a 15-year-old Toyota Prius hybrid. It was purchased in the U.S. It was a gift from my brother. Recently, he asked me how the car was performing. After all, the mileage was quite high when I acquired it. At 243,000 miles (391,000 kilometers), the car could give up the ghost at any time. I told him that the car was running perfectly, and it wasn’t even burning much oil. He told me that many cab drivers in Vancouver drive Prius’s and can often get up to 500,000 kilometers before trading them in. This prompted a discussion that went sideways rapidly. I told my brother that I could head for the coast and open my own taxi business. The best thing about this is that my expenses would be incredibly low because the only place I could afford to live was in my place of business – my car.

My brother thought that Len’s Uber Service had a nice ring to it. (LUS). I couldn’t resist the temptation to put my own spin on the name. I decided to go with Len’s Urban Service Taxi or LUST. He had an interesting idea for a slogan. I will keep you in suspense (mixed company). You can private message me with your slogan!

From the ridiculous to the even more ridiculous. There is a new sport making waves in (where else) southern California. Dog surfing. Let me repeat this. Dog surfing. Competitive dog surfing. I will keep my comments to myself for fear of barking up the wrong tree.

Hope the rest of your summer goes well and see you in September.

P.S. It is painfully obvious that I have had far too much time on my hands this summer!