El Dummo

I wanted to call this story "The Christmas Baboon" but when you read it you will see why I chose an alternate title.

El Dummo is a name I have given to myself to explain away those stupid, mindless moments that we are all familiar with. For example: driving away with your briefcase on the roof of the car, wearing two left handed gloves to shovel the driveway, leaving the yeast out when baking bread or making consistently bad plays at card games. Or how about emailing a picture of a squirrel with over-sized testicles to a sales client instead of a price quote? At our house these are affectionately known as "El Dummo" moments and we have all had them, some more than others - they make life interesting.

But just last week I had a an El Dummo moment to beat them all - and it involves a baboon in a tree. Well not an actual baboon, it just looks like a baboon to me; no one else can see it apparently, only me. I better explain....

Last year a house on the next street had some Christmas lights strung in a tree and (to me) they always appeared in the shape of a baboon. I knew it must have been an illusion like a stain on a wall or patterns in clouds - but I found this one particularly fascinating.

This year when people started decorating for Christmas I was astounded to see that once again our neighbour had somehow managed to string his lights up in the shape of yet another baboon. At first I was just confused but my confusion quickly turned to amazement! What were the odds? Of course when I excitedly told Julie about it she was unimpressed - having heard me go on about it all last year. She is used to these musings of mine and usually just lets them pass.

For several days I continued to be amazed at the return of this festive apparition. I was even starting to consider it some sort of Christmas miracle when I happened to drive by in the daylight and saw the strings of unlit bulbs in the tree in question. That was when it suddenly dawned on me that these were the same lights as last year, they just didn't take them down! It wasn't another baboon after all - it was the same baboon! This might not seem like much of a cognitive leap to you now, but at the time it was nothing short of a revelation - an "El Dummo" moment if there ever was one.

I guess I am relieved that the mystery has been partly solved but that doesn't change the fact that there is still a baboon in that tree. Don't just take my word for it either, drop by our house this season and see the Christmas baboon. And while you are at it, check out the one in the tree too.

Jennifer's Aniston's Eyebrows

Remember the internet? I don't mean that rabbit hole our culture has fallen down and where we all now spend our days as half-willing prisoners. I mean the big old wonderful, mysterious internet of our youth.

I can still remember the first time I even heard the word internet. It was at a Highland Games committee meeting in 1994 and someone brought along a sheet of paper with some jokes he had downloaded and printed from.... "the internet"! I played it cool and pretended that I knew what this internet thing was all about (apparently it had something to do with jokes) but on the inside I was dying to get home and find out more.

Fortunately I had a teenage son to explain it all to me - John being about 14 or 15 at the time. So to make a long story short we bought a computer and a modem, got a dial up account and after many endless hours of technical support we were finally connected to the world wide web. But the fun was yet to come, in those pioneer days you had to download something called a browser - Netscape Navigator being the popular choice at the time. It took many agonizing hours just to down load it, if you were lucky enough to snag a connection which I recall as being somewhat of a gamble in those days. And heaven help you if someone lifted the phone receiver and cut off your connection!

Once it was downloaded and configured - then what? We had no idea what to do. There was no Google, no YouTube, Facebook, Napster or even CBC. What fun! The majority of websites were text based and Netscape even came with an option to turn off images for faster browsing - imagine that.

But for the truly patient there were images out there worth downloading. In fact the first image I can recall downloading was none other than Jennifer Aniston (remember - it was 1994). I was showing the wonders of the internet to some male friends and I could think of no better way to get their attention. Photos loaded very slowly from the top of the screen to the bottom as we all stood there transfixed, slowly admiring her hair, then her forehead and by the time we got to her eyebrows the ice was starting to melt in our drinks. But we were hooked and we could only imagine what the future might hold...

Eventually we all discovered email, and who among us cannot remember the absolute thrill of receiving an email? We had speakers and a message that announced loudly and proudly "You've got mail!" and everyone came running. Most email messages in those days were in the form of jokes - jokes from the internet. A dancing baby! Run a program and your CD drive would open and close! At Christmas time Rudolph would fly around your screen or if you clicked on a certain link, why a beautiful woman would clean the inside of your monitor with her breasts! Ah - those were the days...

But all this wild fun has come to an end due to our fear of viruses - who sends prank files anymore? We are too busy Googling and blogging and updating our status on Facebook to be bothered. I am just as guilty as anyone but now and then it is nice to remember when the internet was a little less complicated and still full of mysteries. Of course we can't go back to those days nor would I want to, so just for fun, as a reminder of those simpler times - I think I'll finish up this blog and go check out Jennifer Aniston's eyebrows.

The Quest

Last Saturday I decided it was time to start up the snow blower for the coming winter season, no point in leaving it to the last minute. As it turned out, it didn't want to start right away and I soon deduced that it needed a new spark plug. Since I had bought it at Sears I figured that was the best place to go for a spark plug... that was my first mistake.

So my journey began with a trip to Sears and after watching two young wizards valiantly trying to help a lady with some sort of warranty problem - over the phone of course, I politely interrupted and inquired as to where I might find an RJ19LM spark plug. One of the two waved his hand vaguely in the direction of a nearby counter indicating silently that they might be over in that direction. He was right indeed, and there they were - three spanking new spark plugs hanging neatly on hooks. That's right - they had a grand total of three spark plugs in stock! Of course these were not the ones I was looking for and the mystical young clerk gravely suggested I would have to call their Toll Free customer service line.

I said maybe I should try Canadian Tire and Sir Skippy's face immediately brightened as he wisely agreed - so off I went feeling my luck was about to change. And things really did seem to be looking up as I gazed down an isle festooned with spark plugs of every size, shape and brand - except the one I was looking for. I was starting to get desperate so after a time I flagged down a passing wizard and asked if he could help me find the elusive RJ19LM spark plug and to his credit I will admit he was more enthusiastic than his counterparts at Sears. He even enlisted the help of another nearby wizard who reluctantly joined in The Quest.

I felt truly blessed as these two weekend warriors searched diligently through mountains of cross reference manuals and knitted their brows as they punched in magical codes and gazed into their glowing computer screens. It became a Battle of the Titans as they went head to head seeing who could out perform the other in their staggering knowledge of spark plugs. This wasn't about me anymore, I had become a mere bystander in what was apparently becoming their solemn quest for an RJ19LM - the Holy Grail of spark plugs.

Ultimately the two finally admitted defeat and announced that my Quest was indeed a great one and if I was to meet with any success at all before the coming snows I would have to continue my journey on Monday morning and make my way to the land of.... (the sound of tympanis in the background).... Auto Machinery. And that is just what I did.

Auto Machinery, to the unenlightened - is a magical place populated by friendly and truly knowledgeable wizards who have practiced their craft for many years. These are not merely minimum wage weekend wizards - in fact they are even closed evenings and weekends; five days a week being sufficient time for them to perfect their mastery of all things mystically mechanical.

The wizards who work there are friendly and wise and I was quickly directed to the next one available who greeted me kindly and smiled confidently awaiting my command. When I revealed to him that I sought the rare and precious RJ19LM spark plug he laughed cheerfully and said "Oh, one of those - we have 64 of them in stock!".

Scarcely had his fingers touched his keyboard when he announced that my spark plug was on the way from their cavernous warehouse and offered to escort me to the cash register. Upon our arrival there, a minor trainee wizard appeared from behind a door proudly bearing the very object itself - my Quest was complete!

And so ends the happy tale of my Quest for not merely the RJ19LM, but for goodness, truth and honesty in the wicked world known as retail shopping. My advice to you, all who read this and seek assistance in the future, is to take my council and make your journey far away from the Malls of Suburbia and venture bravely into the land of Industrial Wholesale, Farm Co-ops and even small Independent Hardware stores. Your journey may be long but it will be worthwhile and you, like me, will find true knowledge, contentment and surprising variety - not to mention ample parking!

So as the season of shopping quickly approaches, be warned and be wise - and may your Quest for the rare and the precious be as successful as mine.