Posted on September 11, 2014 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

X marks the spot

 

 

Last weekend, I was out for a stroll and ended up spending a pleasant hour in the bleachers at Oland Stadium. I watched, with considerable interest, a group of female athletes playing field hockey. It used to be a university sport but I am told that they are now a “club” but can still hold their own at the university level.

My eye caught the big “X” in the middle of the field, with the backdrop being the two newest dorms on campus. Calling them a dorm is both a misnomer and an insult. They are palatial with every modern convenience possible. I had a chance to do a quick tour this summer and they are very impressive… more like a hotel than the cramped quarters that were the norm way back when.

Last year around this time, I wrote a story about St.F.X. students and their importance to the local economy. Go to the search box on my home page and type in the words “ Putting the Ant in Antigonish.”

Keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming contest. I am going to be looking for funny dieting stories. I will be accepting submissions by e-mail or private messaging on Facebook ( to protect your identity! ). Every one that sends me a story will be entered in a draw for 2 pairs of tickets to the upcoming “Week45 Express” road show on October 26^th. in Heatherton. Bring on the stories!

I have a great new story but I’m not sure if it is going to see the light of day, as it involves my lovely bride. The story is about recycling which , in and of itself, is a pretty benign subject. However, something funny happened the other day when Betty arrived home from a weekend of babysitting. Mothers know what total exhaustion looks and feels like. Anyway, her car keys went missing from the time she exited the car until she reached the kitchen. Where they ended up will surprise you.

Speaking of fatigue, we were sharing tales of exhaustion at the office the other day. One staff member confessed that she picked up one of her newborns in the dark of the night. She was bleary eyed. Only when she got out in the hall did she realize that she was holding the child upside down.

Over the next few weeks I plan to publish my first trilogy. “Milling Around” captures my life as a worker in a sawmill back in the 70’s.

And coming up next week, my Casket story ( it will be on my website on Wednesday ) will profile the “Waffle Wagon” that most of us see on a daily basis parked out behind the Post Office and at the Farmer’s Market on the weekend. I spent a delightful hour with the owners , Nicole and Alex recently and we talked about their business and their expansion plan. If I continue to eat their spectacular waffles, I will be working on my own expansion plan. Nicole assured me that I could keep my tummy in check by taking belly dancing lessons from her. That is NOT a pretty visual. The town is blessed with many young entrepreneurs and they deserve our support.

Have a great weekend.

Posted on September 9, 2014 under Storytelling with 3 comments

Fare thee well love

 

 

We all realize that credit cards are a necessary evil.  There may be close to a billion and a half credit cards in use in North America.  It is almost impossible these days to book a hotel or a flight without using a card.  And it is also imperative to have a card in a crisis situation, like an unexpected 50% sale at someone’s favorite department store.

The good news is that, in all likelihood, credit cards will be obsolete by the year 2024.  The bad news is that the last time I checked it was still 2014, so plastic will still be the predominant method to transact business for a few years yet.

Like many prudent Canadians, we are trying to get things in order as we head into retirement.  We are downsizing in order to simplify our lives.  We share one car and, if it was possible, we would only carry one credit card.  While it is tempting to hold onto a card that offers a generous credit limit, we know that this is good for the health of financial institutions and not necessarily our fiscal well-being.

A couple of months ago we decided to cancel one of our cards that hadn’t had a good workout in a while.  The account was in my name and in this age of security and privacy consciousness I was the only one who could cancel it.  The person at the call centre was very disappointed to lose a “valued client” like me.  They only value you when you don’t pay off your balances on a monthly basis.  She assured me that the account had been closed.

Two months later I received a surprise in the mail.  It wasn’t quite a lottery win or a free cruise (my, how the cruises are piling up), but I was startled to learn that the credit card company actually owed me money; 30 cents, to be exact.   I was about to toss the statement in the shredder but my better half strongly suggested (!) that I once again place a call and have the matter laid to rest once and for all.  If not, she opined, I would continue to receive statements, wasting precious trees in the process.

It was a Friday morning.  Everyone loves Friday so what better way to start TGIF than taking care of a small, menacing chore.  I had my statement handy and dialed the 1-800 number.  I played the typical game of charades and dutifully pressed button after button waiting to speak to someone who had a pulse.  I was a bit startled when all of the instructions were delivered in French. With apologies to my Acadian friends in Pomquet, Isle Madame and Cheticamp, I wasn’t quite up to dealing with a long winded explanation of options, en francais.

As my ire grew, I finally heard an English voice:” For English, press 1”.  I am not normally tempted to strangle a phone.

The living, breathing specimen I ended up talking to was a pleasant enough sort.  He started the interrogation in the usual manner. “What is your name? What is your date of birth?” Do you have your credit card with you?”  “Well no” I replied, “I cut it up two months ago when you allegedly closed my account”.  And then, the questions abruptly stopped.  I had failed the security test.  Not only that, there was nothing he could do because the account was no longer active.  Duh.  We were at an impasse and I had to get to work.  To add injury to insult, he told me that I would have to deal with a higher authority in the “security division” which would open in 59 minutes.  It’s a good thing he doesn’t understand Gaelic.

Later in the day, I called and spoke to a helpful agent who put the matter to bed immediately.  And I learned that it could have been handled just as easily earlier that morning.

I can hardly wait for the day that credit cards become a thing of the past.  I dream of the time when I will be able to stand in the bank and simply shout at the top of my lungs, “Give me fifty bucks,” and out the money will come.  Or wave my hand at the grocery clerk to have my purchases paid for, bagged and delivered by the time I get home.

Just like it used to be when cash was king.

 

Posted on September 8, 2014 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Anna MacDonald formerly of Colindale Road

 

 

I go to mass every Saturday at my mother’s apartment building. We pray, we sing and we always have a chuckle or two before or after mass. It is a wonderful group of people and do they have stories to tell! Just before mass last Saturday, one of the residents, Anna ( pictured above ) showed me this Syperek painting of the Colindale Road. If you read my story, “Happy Trails,” you might remember the picture that went with the story. Anna grew up on the Colindale Road and assured me that there were many side roads along that roadway that were even more breathtaking. It seems like we’re always in such a hurry to get places that we don’t have time to enjoy the journey. Take this drive someday. You won’t be disappointed.

Don’t you just love a face full of spider webs? Yes, it’s that time of the year when spiders are particularly industrious. I walked out the side door of our house ( the entrance to our former home office ) on the weekend and was immediately encased in fibrous cobweb material. This is not the grossest thing to happen to a person but there’s something about it that has a mild disgust level. I don’t think I could write an entire story about this topic. Can you describe the experience?

Shinerama. Apologies to those of you who have never lived in a university town but this fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis is a rite of passage for freshmen students every September. When we were children, our mother often referred to us as “screaming banshees.” No surprise that the origin of the word came from the Irish ( she was an “O’Flaherty ). According to legend, a banshee was a female spirit whose wailing warned of impending death in a house.

There is fundraising and then there is Shinerama. Hordes of newly minted university students don their “house” t-shirts and converge on every sidewalk and street corner in the community, exhorting people to give money for this worthwhile charity. And they scream…like banshees. They are in your face, they are loud and they are determined. Walking down Main Street is like running the gauntlet. I looked up this phrase and here’s what it said: “ Often, to run the gauntlet implies a sort of initiation or hazing, or to endure a prolonged test.” Yup. It’s an endurance test. I know people who won’t venture out of their house the first Saturday in September.

Many people find the whole Shinerama thing a bit much and voice their displeasure. People with Cystic Fibrosis don’t nor do I. You see, for many of these young people, this is their very first taste of fundraising. And, even though they think that they are going to grow up to become lawyers, teachers and nurses, they will come to learn that these are hobbies. No. They will become fundraisers. Fundraising makes the world go round especially if you have children.

So, I say, let’s celebrate Shinerama and thank these young people, even if they get on your nerves. They mean well and we are going to need them to do the heavy lifting after we sell our last 50/50 ticket.

Coming up tomorrow is the story “Credit Card Crazy.” Have you ever tried to cancel your credit card by phone? Sounds simple. NOT. This is my account of attempting to cancel a card with a 30 cent credit. It will make you laugh… or cry.

Have a great week.