The Rural Voice, 2019-04, Page 16 “You folks doing anything special
for Easter?” Cliff Murray asked
George McKenzie the other morning
at Mabel’s Grill.
“Nah, it’ll be just the wife and
me,” George replied. “Some of the
kids are going to their in-laws. Then
our daughter and her husband are
flying to Myrtle Beach for four days
of golf – well it will be four days of
golf for him. For her it will be
shopping for bargain clothes and
listening to him bragging about his
golf scores.”
“Is that the son-in-law who’s the
environmentalist?” asked Dave
Winston. “The guy who’s always
riding you for keeping cattle because
their burps are ruining the
atmosphere?”
“That’s the one,” sighed George.
“Apparently burning tons of jet fuel
for four days of golf has no effect on
climate change.”
“How about you guys? What are
your plans?” Cliff asked Dave.
“We’re going to my wife’s sister’s
in the big smoke,” said Dave. “It
ought to be interesting.”
“You don’t seem too happy about
it,” George noted.
“Well there’ll be eight of us so we
may have to eat supper in shifts,”
said Dave. “She’s got one of those
postage-stamp apartments on the
25th floor of a downtown condo. I
suppose if the weather’s warm a
couple of us might be able to eat on
the balcony.”
“Is it really that crowded?” asked
George.
“We were there for Thanksgiving
a couple of years ago,” said Dave.
“What I was most thankful for was
when it was all over and I could get
outside and take my first deep breath
in hours. The only way you could
take a deep breath in the apartment
was if we took numbers and breathed
alternately. Even then, we might
have sucked up all the oxygen and
got light-headed.”
“What a way to live,” said Cliff,
shaking his head.
“What gets me is the price they
pay,” said Dave. “First of all they
had to put down a deposit and then
wait four years before the apartment
was actually built. Then they had to
come up with the rest of the half-
million before they could move in.”
“Half million!” thundered George.
“I remember when that seemed a
ridiculous price for a whole farm.”
“Oh prices have gone up since
then,” said Dave. “They could get
$200,000 more if they sold now. Of
course the price of anything they
might move to has also gone up.”
“Twenty-five floors,” said Cliff
thoughtfully. “Seems like the Easter
Bunny might be tuckered out before
he hiked all they way up there.”
“I’d guess he skips those
buildings,” said Dave. “Nobody there
has kids. They can’t afford to. First
of all somebody would have to take
maternity leave and without two
salaries they couldn’t afford the
mortgage payment and monthly
maintenance fees.”
“I imagine there wouldn’t be
enough room for a kid so they’d have
to move,” said George.
“Exactly!” said Dave. ‘But it
doesn’t stop people from having
dogs. I’ll bet there’s a dog in every
apartment. And a lot of them are big!
Cleo’s got this Great Dane. If he’s
looking out the window and wags his
tail, he knocks dishes off the counter
in the kitchen. I took Brutus out for a
walk one time and, of course, he
immediately wanted to do his
business and, of course, you’re
supposed to clean up after your dog. I
should have taken a shovel and
wheelbarrow.”
“I read a newspaper article that
said that’s a real problem,” said Cliff.
“Apparently some lazy owners are
letting their dogs poop in the
stairwells or the parking garage and
not cleaning up after them.”
“Can you imagine the smell?”
wondered George.
“Seems in some buildings they’re
giving dogs DNA tests. Then if they
find poop they ship off a sample to a
lab and find out whose dog it is and
fine the owner.”
“Now there’s a job I could do
without,” said George. “All day long
testing dog poop for DNA. Yuck!”◊
12 THE RURAL VOICE
The world’s
problems
are solved
daily ’round
the table at
Mabel’s
Grill.
Mabel’s Grill
EASY LIFT DOORS LTD.
515 James Street S., St. Marys,
Ontario N4X 1C7
Ph: 519 349-2355
800 667-3845
Fax: 519 349-2144
website:
easyliftdoors.com
email:
easylift@quadro.net
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