The Squamidian Report – Dec. 27 / 08
Issue #344
Including:
The Ant And The Grasshopper
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Well look at that, here we are with the last addition of the Squamidian for the year. Good old number 344 if you are counting. I know I speak for both Greg and myself when I say that it’s been fun most of the time and drudgery at other times. Some columns seem to write themselves, other require agonizing at the computer while trying to come up with anything. Scrapping the bottom of the barrel if you will. But every column requires thinking of something so it forces us to stay alert to life around us and I guess that’s a good thing. So we’ll keep it up for a while longer as long as there is interest out there.
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I usually manage to avoid grocery shopping. I don’t mind stopping at my store on the way home from work, picking bread and milk type things. I’m in and out so fast that I barely have to put the truck into park. I know what I want and go straight to it, no dilly-dallying around. Get it done, get out and go home. That simple.
However, about twice a year Sue manages to drag me along to her grocery store. (We prefer different grocery stores). I usually make that particular shopping experience so miserable for her that she no longer wants me to come along. Perfect!
When she goes shopping, she goes up and down EVERY SINGLE ISLE in the store. She looks at all the stuff. Drives me nuts. She managed to drag me along to the grocery store on Christmas Eve morning, probably against her better judgment but it was still her idea, not mine. She hadn’t made it half way through the produce section before I’d had all I could take. I very generously volunteered to go wait outside where I could wander around with some sense of freedom. After a while I went back in to check on her progress. She had worked her way about half way through the store and was in some isle looking at stuff. So back out I went again.
Now, I’d already wandered all over the little plaza so I simply leaned against the front of the grocery store and watched the people go by. I’d nod at many of them, after all, it was Christmas and being friendly is what it is all about. However, I noticed that many of them would not make eye contact and just kept on going. Then it hit me, they thought I was a homeless person hoping for handouts. Maybe Sue was right, I do need a haircut.
Our Christmas Day dawned clear, cold and spectacular. It was post card perfect, taken to the extreme. Everything was covered with a foot of fresh fluffy snow. The trees were draped in white. The sky was a deep blue and cloud free. The streets were quiet, almost deserted as people stayed home. The sun lit the mountaintops and slopes. You couldn’t look in any direction without going “wow”, no matter where you were or where you were looking. The eagles along the river and highway were proudly posing for anyone passing by below them. The whole day was incredible, the kind of Christmas Day that people dream of but seldom experience. Gotta love it.
doug
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The
Ant And The Grasshopper
Forwarded From Clyde
CLASSIC VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
THE END
THE CANADIAN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?
The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving. The CBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food. Canadians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.
The NDP, the CAW and the Coalition against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house The CBC, interrupting an Inuit cultural festival special from Nunavut with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome." Jack Layton rants in an interview with Mike Duffy that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share". In response to polls, the Liberal Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant's taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers. Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. The ant moves to the US, and starts a successful agribiz company. The CBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food, though spring is still months away, while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it.
Inadequate government funding is blamed, Bob Rae is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $10,000,000. The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose; the Toronto Star blames it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity. The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching Canada's multicultural diversity, which promptly set up a marijuana grow-op and terrorize the community.
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Hello everyone!
I sincerely hope you all had a great Christmas!
I remember the days when we used to send the garbage
man into shock the first pick up day after Christmas! LOL! He’d just jump off
the back of the truck and shake his head in disbelief! There was a time when
we’d spend so much on each other it was hard to find our way into the living
room on Christmas morning. There would be boxes piled on every piece of
furniture and of course all over the floor around the tree. However, we now
find that after collecting gifts several times a year, birthdays and any other
special occasions for 36 years, our house is pretty much full. We decided not
to over do the gift giving any more. It really had become ridiculous and just
was not practical any more. Besides, it made us feel guilty having so much when
others had so little. Believe me, we are far from the top of the heap when it
comes to wealth but we always seemed to have enough to impress the garbage man
with the mountain of cardboard and bags of refuse on the first pick up day
after Christmas as I said before. Those days are over and I’m happy to say
we’ve become much more sensible when special occasions roll around. It’s almost
a sin that it took us 35 years to realize our house was full! LOL!
We had a wonderful Christmas this year and now that
it’s over, it seemed altogether too short. What the heck, the tree is already
gone and packed into a new “Tree Bag” and stored on the mezzanine until next
year when we’ll start all over again. I guess I can start anticipating the
motorcycle weather once again! Yippee! I did manage to keep my favourite
pastime (my motorcycle) in the loop over Christmas by receiving a terrific set
of engine guards for the motorcycle from Carole as a gift. She sure does think
of useful gifts with very little hint dropping from me! We all did very well
once again without “over doing things”!
We actually had a quiet Christmas Eve and then spent
the evening of Christmas Day at Carole’s youngest brother’s place. It was nice
for Carole not to have to cook for all those people and just be one of the
guests for a change. We hosted Christmas for many years and it seemed that every
year all Carole did was run run run for everyone else and really didn’t get a
minute to herself. This year was nice and we enjoyed the evening. Actually it
was quite pleasant until everyone abandoned the kitchen after supper and
gathered around the 60” “Big Screen” TV to watch a children’s movie with the
kids so they wouldn’t get lonely I guess! That left me, Carole and Pam her
brother’s wife to do the clean up. I really didn’t mind helping with the
cleanup. After all, it was better than watching a silly kids movie…………..that
I’d seen before anyway! LOL! So we managed to get the humongous mess cleared
and the dishes put away just in time to declare how tired and full we were and
announce our departure. GEE, I sure hope we did a good enough job of the clean
up that we’ll get invited back again next year!
Well, it’s time to eat some of the great treats I
got in my Christmas Stocking and enjoy a rip snortin’ round of SCRABBLE on our
new high tech SCRABBLE game that was a present from Adam. It’s really cool! It’s
a board built into a box that has a drawer in the side that contains all the
parts and pieces of the SCRABBLE game. It even has a built in turntable on the
bottom so you can rotate it to face you when you take your turn. The really
cool feature of this new design is the ridges that surround each letter on the
board so you don’t have to be careful not to dislodge them from place every
time you play a letter! Finally……someone was thinking when they built this new
model!
Well, they’re waiting for me at the kitchen table so
I’d better call it a night on this one!
Thanks for tuning in and I look forward talking to
you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now.. Greg.
PS: Something To Think About>
What about New Years Eve???
PPS: Something Else To Think About>
“A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine
for doing well!”
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Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.