Potpourri
A little boy got lost in the YWCA and wandered into the women’s locker room. When spotted, the women burst into shrieks, grabbing towels or running for cover. The young lad watched in amazement, and then asked, “What’s the matter, haven’t you ever seen a little boy before?”
Perendinating will not be in his vocabulary at a time like that in his future. It’s a new word I just discovered, which, just like this young fellow’s naivete, will soon fade into the sunset. Puh-REN-di-nayt, is to put off until the day after tomorrow. Vic’s motto was never do today what you can put off till tomorrow, which is good enough procrastinating for most of us—I mean, two days? That’s downright lazy, he said.
Anyway, that YWCA spy will be joined by another naive five-year-old who was out for a drive with his mom on a fine summer evening when the passenger in the convertible ahead of them—a woman who, apparently, was stark naked—stood up.
“Mom,” he hollered, “that lady isn’t wearing a seat belt!” He’ll not be perendinating in later years either, I’d suspect.
Is it any wonder the English language is considered to be inundated with more innuendos than stars in the galaxy?
Why, it could cause you to hoick your hair in frustration. Hoick means to yank. Mind you, the dictionary folk wrap it in bureaucratese, yank is its second meaning; its first is to move, or pull abruptly. Everybody knows yank; who knows hoick?
Now, I’m not trying to be a flibbertigibbet, (a chatterer), just rambling about the incredible and mind-boggling variety found in our superb language, which has more fascinating twists and turns than a supertanker full of pretzels. It’s definitely harder to master than getting ketchup out of a bottle.
Four-year-old Mary was watching Mom trying to get ketchup out of the bottle for her chips when the phone rang. Mary answered, and when the minister asked to speak to Mom, she said “Mommy can’t come to the phone right now, she’s hitting the bottle.”
Hitting the bottle is where we hit the spending big leagues according to the number crunchers at Statistics Canada. Their chart, headed Sales Of Alcoholic Beverages Per Capita 15 Years And Over At March 31, 2008, puts us at $1,211.70 per person, per year, with the NWT and Nunavut second at $924.6 and Newfoundland and Labrador third at $828.5. But hey, says Big Ray, drinking doesn’t make you fat, it makes you lean . . . against bars, tables, chairs and poles. Our Yukon stats bureau reported that 30,000 of us drank 4,990,600 litres this year, the fiscal year ending 31 March, keeping us on top as the heartiest and heaviest sippers in Canada.
Oh, we’re told the big consumption numbers are the fault of thousands of tippling tourists who visit us annually. They contribute mightily in filling our tippling tax profit pot. On the other side of the fence, there are other organizations who tell us we’re still not paying enough attention to the youngsters, such as the little girl watching her dad don his tux.
“Daddy, you shouldn’t wear that suit,” she told him.
He naturally asked why, to which she replied, “You know, it always gives you a headache the next morning.”
Is it really the tourists who sip so much?
Ah, but ‘tis green-up time, a tip of the hat to puddle time and those who grab spring and discover it a handful at a time.