Happy Birthday John E.

A funny thing happened on my way to the Post Office.  It wasn’t there.  😳

I sent John Erickson, who litters decorates my blogposts with witty comments, a birthday present.  His actual birthday is still over four months away, but I was using the Canadian, metric calendar, and got my conversions mixed up.  I sent BrainRants a birthday present some years ago, and there were very few repercussions, so I thought I’d risk it again.  Since it was by surface mail, TSA didn’t get involved.

The daughter’s bestie likes to buy the occasional commemorative coin from the Canadian Mint.  She claims that she only intended to buy one, but wound up with two coins medallions, celebrating the life of Queen Elizabeth II.  Since she knew that I was interested in coins, she gave one to the daughter to pass on to me.

While I am ‘interested in coins,’ I am interested in mostly foreign coins.  Even though this is a magnificent artifact, it is neither foreign, nor a coin.  It has no face value.  It is a medallion.  If I kept it, it would only languish in a box.  I thought of John E.  Despite being an American, marooned in the wilds of Ohio, he is a greater – finer, Anglophile, Royalist, and Elizabethan than I ever could be.  When Elizabeth died, he wailed so loudly that, “My Queen has died!!” that I thought he was talking about his wife.  I decided to send it to him as a surprise present.  I put it in a bubble-pack mailer, added a cover letter, and headed for the post office.

In Southern Ontario, Canada Post has a sorting and shipping depot in every large urban area.  All of the other Postal Services, they have abdicated to branches of the most populous pharmacy chain, as well as some selected convenience stores.  Certain clerks are supposed to be trained to Canada Post levels, on Canada Post protocols and procedures.  I have a pharmacy nearby, but I was headed for the Wal-Mart out on the Golden Mile, so I went to the drug-store next to it.

Some of the stores are mirror images of each other.  I marched in to the left-rear corner.  Hmmm, cosmetics.  I grumpily stomped over to the right-rear corner.  Grrr!!, vitamins.   Where in Hell is the postal outlet???  A clerk told me that they are the only branch which does not host one, and she had no idea why not.  The one by my house is nearer but, “If you’re going to the XXX Plaza, on the other side of town, there’s a store over there with a postal outlet.”

By coincidence, we were headed for that plaza, to reap savings on grocery sale prices.  This damned inflation is eating better than I am.  While the wife grocery-shopped, I walked over to the pharmacy and stood in line – and stood in line – AND STOOD IN LINE!!  That part of Postal Service, they have mastered.  The woman in front of me had a mailer identical to mine.  She finally stepped forward, handed it to the ‘Postal’ clerk, asked that he check that it was ready to go, and to please apply sufficient postage.  It was judged okay.  $2.08 later, she was on her way.  I stepped up, handed the same clerk the same mailer, and asked for the same thing – check that it was ready to ship and apply postage.  $2.08 later my little package was on its way.

I excitedly waited for an email from John, that the parcel had arrived….  Two weeks later, I went to the community mailbox to pick up my own mail, and there was my mailer back again.  It had a Canada Post sticker over my address label, with three little boxes – all checked.  Insufficient postage – Incorrect label – This service not available in this country  W.T.F!!?

The next day, I went to a convenience store.  It’s a bit farther than the pharmacy.  The people who run the store, and the Postal Outlet, are recent immigrants, but I’ve used them before, and feel confident.  I handed the clerk the package and asked what was wrong with it, and how could I correct any problems.

Three check marks – three lies!!  I had sufficient postage, but I was also expected to pay for a Customs Declaration of value.  My address label was correct, but I was expected to add the Customs label, because…. The country that didn’t provide the service was the USA.  “You’ll have to send this as a small parcel.”  “What the Hell is in your hand, if it’s not a small parcel??”  “Well, it needs the Customs sticker added to it.  How much is it worth??”  I received it as a present.  I don’t know!?

I guessed at $29.95 Cdn, hoping that John would not have to pay duty on it when he received it.  If he did, I should have guessed $9.95.  How much for the Customs sticker?  $10.00, do you want it traced??  I didn’t trace it the first time.  How much to trace?  “Only another $5.00.”  Screw that!  If it don’t arrive, I just won’t tell John I tried.

When I got home, and told the wife what had happened, she innocently said, “Well, we could have driven it down.”  Are you saying that we might go on a trip?  Further adventures may ensue.  😀

Four days later, I got an excited, grateful email from John.  Apparently, I done so good that he and his wife were willing to consider another short visit.  😎

Bagged Fibbing Friday

Here we go then, with Pensitivity101’s mixed bag from last week……….

1. What is boisterous?

That’s a group of young males having fun.  They can be loud.  They often shout and yell.  It’s the opposite of gurlsterous, where young females play together.  They screech and squeal in such high tones that neighbourhood dogs have their paws over their ears.

2. What is a womaniser?

That is Cerberus, the modern, three-headed Hellhound consisting of Woke society, and Presentism, aided and abetted by years of eating and drinking food from plastic containers, which leech out pseudo-estrogen, all contributing to Real Men™ becoming simpering wimps.

3. What is a faux pas?

It’s the front foot of the quick, red vulpine animal that jumped over the lazy, brown dog, which the nobility chase with horses – the unspeakable, pursuing the inedible.

4. Define plumber

A crack addict.

5. What is a sous-chef?

(S)He is a high-class victuals preparation expert, who does so using copious amounts of wine and various liqueurs.  Sometimes, they even put some in the food.

6. What is antisocial?

She is my Father’s younger sister, after she’s imbibed 5 or 6 “Medicinal toddies.’

7. Why did they call the wind Maria?

How do you solve a problem named Maria?  I thought they called the wind Mariah, but what do I know about music??  I can’t Carey a tune in a bucket.

8. Where would you find a kettle drum?

Underneath the big corn popper at the movie theater, or county fair.

9. What is a kango drill?

It is an Australian Military Band marching maneuver.

10. What makes bread rise?

Inflation!  😳  And petrol, and rent, and….

I Bagged Another Fibbing Friday

Another mixed bag last week, and Pensitivity101 is still looking forward to reading what I eventually come up with for these.

1. Why do we say it’s raining cats and dogs?

The cats aren’t too bad.  They have two kitty-litter trays to choose from, but after we receive snow (like last week), the dogs get more than a little reluctant to venture into the white wonderland of the back yard.  They’re not Huskies, but I expected better from Scottish Terriers.  A spray bottle of cleanser/disinfectant/deodorizer and some damp paper towels erase the problem, and the exercise helps keep me limber and thin.

2. What is meant by ‘The elephant in the room?
   See #3, below.  A washroom trip would have paintings on the wall rattling, and pets on the floor and knick-knacks on end tables in danger.
   

3. What is downsizing?

 It’s what I had to do, two years after retiring from a manual-labour job that burned 3000 calories a day.  I stopped working, but I didn’t stop eating.  When I sat around the house, I sat AROUND the house.  Non-resealable snack bags contained ONE serving.

4. What is a Panto Dame?

She’s a good-looking, sexually-attractive, surgically-enhanced, plastic-filled, living, breathing Barbie-doll chick who has all the young bucks huffing and puffing, and slobbering all over.  We older guys don’t get so worked up anymore, we’re a little more restrained, not because we’ve got more couth, but because sad experience has shown that – like a dog chasing a car – even if we caught one, we’re not allowed to operate it.  And we’re out of gas.

5. What is pumpernickel?

It’s a geriatric retiree, living on a fixed-income Government pension, but hooked on gambling and casinos, plugging five-cent coins into the cheapest slot machine faster than a stoner flushing his stash when the Drug Squad comes to visit.

6. What’s the difference between poison ivy and poison oak?

It’s a matter of height.  If you get an itchy rash around your feet and ankles, that’s poison ivy.  Poison oak is when you get it up around the twigs and berries, and spend a fortune on calamine lotion.  👿

7. What is a plimsoll line?

It’s a ‘Time gentlemen, please’ offer, sometimes heard down at the Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell pub at closing time.

8. What are waffles?

They are unethical politicians (are there any other kind?), who will say anything and everything to get re-elected.  I support LGBTQ.  They’re a bunch of perverts. There should be an increase in the minimum wage.  These unchecked unions will bankrupt the country.

9. How can you beat inflation?

I tried to do it with 18” of broken rake handle.  The judge said that, if I obey the peace bond, and never enter that supermarket again, after a year, my conviction for assault on the grocer will be expunged.

10. What is catsup?

It’s this handsome fellow here, who sits outside my bedroom door at 4 AM, to loudly announce that he feels he should be fed.  😳

What’s It Worth?

I was just lounging in a big tub of nostalgia.  (Do I still have any on me?) 
When I was a kid, a dollar meant something, and there weren’t very many millionaires.

First, the farthing (quarter-penny) disappeared – then the half-pence – now, Canada’s penny is no more.  As inflation lops off the bottom, it piles more on top that we soon get used to.

I recently had the chance to re-watch the old movie, The Girl, The Gold Watch, And Everything.  The hero is accused of absconding with$27,000,000.  At first, I couldn’t understand the fuss that was being made.  Now, twenty-seven million is a nice piece of pocket-change.  As the embezzling Congressman said, “A million here – a million there – pretty soon it starts to add up.”  Pretty soon, mere millionaires are a dime-a-dozen.

The son dug out and lent me the John D. MacDonald book that the movie was based on.  He had the 1980, movie-novelization copy, but the book was originally written in 1962.  An online conversion site showed me that One 1962 Dollar – is worth $9.83 today.  The missing 27 million would be worth over a quarter of a $BILLION in 2021 – now that’s worth getting upset about.

This all reminded me of a television show that aired from 1955 to 1960, titled The Millionaire.  Each week, multi-millionaire John Beresford Tipton, had an agent GIVE a cashier’s cheque for $1,000,000 to someone he had chosen.  Tipton’s socio-psychological curiosity was the reason that the show then followed each recipient, to see what they did with the money.

One man who had lost his wife, was despondent, and convinced that he would never find such a love again.  He took a round-the-world cruise, met a sweet, young, available thing onboard, and it all worked out with soap-opera predictability.  One million, back then, would be the equivalent of $10/12 Million today.  The interest alone would accumulate so fast that they never need get off the ship, except to purchase a Rolls-Royce for each port.

The running gag in this show was that, like Charlie, in Charlie’s Angels, except for a hand passing off the cheque at the beginning of each show…. We never saw Tipton, and yet, when I went to research the show, there was a listing for Peter Frees – as Tipton

I had forgotten that voice actors get credits also.  Peter Frees is the most famous person that you’ve never seen.  He actually did three unseen voices during this series.  He has lent his dulcet tones to dozens of video games and dozens of animated movies.  His list of voice credits is longer than the late, great Mel Blanc – Ehhhhh, what’s up with that, Doc?

Flash Fiction #146

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

ROUND AND ROUND

I don’t want to go on a round-the-world cruise. By the time you get there, you’re back here.  Besides, it might pass perilously close to North Korea.

Still, it would be nice to get away from Trump for a while. The two most inflated things about The Donald are his ego, and his Twitter account. Those are the only things that I want “blown up.”  Are there any cruise ships without Wi-Fi?  It might be worth it to pay extra for some political peace and quiet.

Unlimited booze and food??! I’d come back with a figure like Frosty the Snowman.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

 

Pint Sized

Always fascinated with the details of English word usage, I recently read a post titled Euphemisms. In it, a young female explained how the seemingly innocent words of many of the nursery rhymes we tell our children, had a much darker meaning when they were first composed.

She apparently had a real vendetta against royalty and religion. Her first story was about “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary”, who was Queen “Bloody” Mary, trying to return now-Protestant England to the Catholic Church.  Her garden grew well, because it was fertilized with the corpses of the many that she had tortured and executed.

The writer claimed that “Three Blind Mice” were three noble men(sic) who plotted against Mary. She didn’t have them blinded, or mutilated (their ‘tails’ cut off), merely burned at the stake.  But, in reality, there were only two who plotted, and only one was a noble, the other, an Anglican Bishop.

“Goosey, Goosey, Gander” is about Catholic sympathisers hiding priests from Protestant torture and death squads. The line about grabbing them by their left leg was because priests were identified when they put their left foot forward as they genuflected.

Already cynical, she lost my belief when her mix of fact to fiction became too thin on the “Jack And Jill” story. This is word history, not political history, and something I’ve researched.

She stated that it referred to the execution of Louis XIII and Marie Antoinette. When Louis (not Jack – or even Jacques) was beheaded, he lost his ‘Crown.’  When Marie was guillotined, her head ‘came tumbling after.’  She didn’t explain why English commoners would make up rhymes about French monarchs.

This little rhyme is all about governments getting more tax income by screwing with sizes. It was something citizens were complaining about 400 years ago, and they’re still screwing us today.

A “Jack” was a leather mug, in which inns and taverns served 12 ounces of beer or cheap wine. Taxes were paid on how many ‘Jacks’ were dispensed. Suddenly, by Royal decree, the size of a Jack was reduced to 10 ounces, and taxes on beer and wine went up by 20%.

Taxes were often paid in ‘Crowns’, silver English coins. Soon both barkeeps and the drinking working man were going bankrupt (broke).  When the Jack fell down, he/it broke his ‘Crown’.

The Gill – or Jill – was a quarter of a pint, the amount of a shot of harder liquor. The Incredible Shrinking Jack trick had worked so well that the government tried it again.  A gallon had been 160 ounces, therefore a quart (quarter gallon) was 40 ounces, a pint was 20….and a quarter-pint Gill, was 5.

The gallon was reduced to 128 ounces, a quart to 32, a pint to 16. The 5 ounce Gill became 4 ounces, the tax on liquor went up 25% with the stroke of a pen, “and Jill came tumbling after.”

A later government restored the gallon/quart, etc. sizes, but the results can still be seen. The UK has ‘Imperial’, 40 ounce quarts, but the US never changed back, keeping their 32 oz. version.  The US has a Fifth (of a 128 oz. gallon = 25.6 oz.) of booze, where Canada insists that it’s a 26er.

When I was but a mere child, dairies delivered 40 oz. quart glass bottles of milk to the house. When glass yielded to cardboard cartons, the international conglomerates who now provided cow juice, did so in 32 oz. American quarts, without changing our cost.

In 1971, when Canada went metric, no-one really knew anything about metric sizes. Containers were now (34oz. approx.) liters.  Cost went up, but uncertainty kept complaints down.  40 oz. glass pop bottles became 1-liter plastic containers – at the same price.

To lull the population into happily accepting metrification, the Canadian government actually solicited poems from citizens, extolling the beauty and benefits of the Metric System. They were disappointed by the low turnout, and definitely did not publish the one that said;

When things go Metric,
Prices rise!
Surprise, surprise,
Surprise, surprise!

The Portuguese lady selling bread at the Market continues to shout, “Three bags for $5.” The old loaves of bread suitable for making trencherman farmers’ sandwiches are now so small that they’re barely big enough to make petit-fours.  The hamburger and hot-dog buns remain the same size, but the bags which used to contain a dozen buns, first slipped to 10, slid to 9, fell to 8, and, hopefully, have bottomed out at a ridiculous 7 per pack.

The only thing that I have as much left in my wallet as I used to, is lint.