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Ordinary Treasures
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 1842
On the rounds of the thrift shops the past few weeks, the weather having stalled the launch of Garage Sale Season.
Finds include an assortment of fine vintage cufflinks, the click-fit of gold plate and glass rubies, enamel and paste diamonds, but pretty (and sparkling) nonetheless. A handful of antique postcards - a couple of which are remarkable and I shall be loathe to send them on until I've scanned them into the computer. A 1967 Cougar Quarter (actually a Bobcat), found in my change is as well a pleasant surprise. And to round it all off, a (Canadian) 1st edition of Miracle on 34 St and a copy of Peter Fleming's "Brazilian Adventure", which I'll review shortly.
In short, the ordinary treasures one finds while passing time until the garages open and the treasure hunting can begin in earnest....
Mice, Guineau Pig & Adder
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1993
I'm looking through a glass door into my house and I can see a mouse and I determine to catch it.
I've had mice before, I'm not going through this again...
Inside, the cats are hiding from the mouse (mice) in the dark, a guinea pig is waddling along, it's back torn open so I can view the organs within, there is the heart and the kidneys...it looks serious and I'll attend to it as soon as I catch the mouse....
It's in a dark corner, fleeting by a furnace duct, and somehow I sweep it up and ... (?) ... but I know there are more. There are always more. And so I go into a cupboard above the stove, there are loads of buns in bags here and sure enough I catch another 3 mice in the bread, throw them all into a plastic bag, they're fighting and clawing to get out and I have to find something to do with it quick, don't want to take it outside as they'll just find their way back in....
The half-witted dishwasher from work is there, she's watching me, goes into the cupboard and helps herself to a bun and stands there stupidly eating it while I puzzle over what to do with the mice....
Then there's an adder, the most venomous snake in Eastern Canada (or so the dream tells me...), the rat-king something or other, small, and now I have to watch while they dispose of it properly...it's endangered and they don't want to kill it so I assume an aerial view of the snake catcher and his two assistants releasing it into a river, the river right above a waterfall and beneath it some dirty water, rust colored, algae filled, the back-pond of somebodies estate and he's holding the adder with a forked twig, waves it in the center of the river until it's free, swims over the falls and I wonder if it will pose a threat to the people who live below the waterfall, but this is really irrelevant...
Frank Paris: Amazing Marionettes
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1598
The Date
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1668
He's two hours late for his reservation and the kitchen is closing up. But he's a regular, and so we keep them a little longer to take his order.
My day has just gone to hell.
The entire afternoon, serving a single table of two. Time I'd usually spend staring vacantly into space, or sitting down having a coffee. Or napping. But it's all gone to hell now.
He introduces me to his date, and as I'm the only person there, and by talent quite invisible they converse as if I weren't in the room. He has it all, all he needs now is a woman to share it with...
...and she, she's a little bit older and maybe not so interested right away, and so they talk about their children and their families...
and they talk and drink wine and more wine and talk some more. I do endless sidejobs, polish glasses, check on them every half hour or so, they don't need or want a lot of attention. But I'm there, close by, abstractedly eavesdropping....
The Cellphone Rings
And he takes the call...he's talking for a moment and then explodes at whoever is on the other end "What do you fucking mean! I'm pre-approved!!!".. and then the tone gets a little more conciliatory..."I make about a hundred, a hundred fifty thousand per year base salary, then there are dividends, another couple of hundred thousand a year...all told about half a million a year..."
He's without shame. This is possibly the most transparent and vulgar pick-up I've seen, worse even than the Bosses Nephew's suggestion that he be allowed to rape a girl in the ass...
When he's done giving out the intimates of his financial life he hangs up and apologizes to his date; "I have quite a temper" he confesses. There's no explaining why he was subject to the telephone audit, and she doesn't query him, it's a man's business after all...
I can't believe this hasn't been staged.
She's impressed with his temper and they leave shortly thereafter. Together.
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