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10 THE RURAL VOICE
Mabel's Grill
The
world's
problems
are
solved
daily
'round
the table
at
Mabel 's
"1 see they finally dropped the
'Rural Affairs' off the end of the
Ministry of Agriculture and Food,"
said George McKenzie the other
morning. "Now there's some
common sense."
"Yeh, now they can go and
repaint all the signs on all the
buildings, change the names on the
sides of the vehicles and reprint all
the letterhead." said Cliff Murray.
"That'll probably take about half of
the money they've still got left in the
agricultural budget."
"Just watch, now they won't have
any money for safety nets," said
Dave Winston.
"So does this mean we're not
going to have any more rural
affairs?" wondered Molly Whiteside.
"Damn it will be dull around here if
everybody behaves themselves and
there's no good gossip to pass
along."
"Maybe that's why they dropped
the name," said Dave. "As the first
woman ag minister Helen Johns
didn't want to be in charge of rural
affairs."
"Yeh, there's the old double
standard," said Molly. "No problem
with men being in charge of having
affairs but no woman should be
associated with them."
"Huh? I think I missed some-
thing," said George.
"Yeh, like the 20th century," said
Molly.
"Uh, Mabel," Cliff called out to
the kitchen, "there's a ladybug
walking across my toast."
"Oh those damn things, you just
can't keep them out," said Mabel,
coming in and grabbing the bug and
slipping it into a jar with about 20
others. "Thank goodness they're not
as bad here as at home or the health
department would close us down."
"I used to think those thlwrtgs were
cute," said Molly.
"Everything's appreciated more
when ifs scarce," said Cliff. "Now
that we've got them by the million
they're a pest."
"I hear they're some kind of
foreign bugs," said George.
"Yeh, the Americans apparently
brought 'em in from Asia as a
biological pest control and they
moved north," said Cliff.
"Illegal immigrants! Hmm, do
you think we should put the army at
the border to keep us secure like the
Americans do?" wondered Dave.
"What kind of weapons would
they have, fly swatters?" Molly
wondered.
"That's probably about all they
could afford," said George.
"If they were going to keep
something out, I wish it was those
aphids we got last year, not the
ladybugs," said Dave. "They sure
made a mess of my soybeans."
"I hear these bugs are no ladies,"
said Cliff. "They've pretty well got
rid of the native species of ladybug
altogether."
"I guess that means we're
upgrading the breed then, doesn't it,"
George said. "If our bugs were tough
enough they'd have stuck it out."
"Oh lord, more 'survival of the
fittest' BS," moaned Molly.
"Well that's the way the world
works. Now I was reading about
these fierce ants from Argentina that
have been spreading around the
world on ships," said George.
"They're all over California, for
instance."
"I read about that too," said Cliff.
"They've gone to Europe too only
there an interesting thing happened.
Everywhere else these Argentinian
ants fought even among themselves
with one colony of ants battling
another. But these ants when they
went to Europe started co-operating
with each other. Instead of the one
hill fighting with the next, they
started working together and the first
thing you know they'd driven out the
native ants along thousands of miles
of the southern coast."
"Surprise, surprise!" growled
George. "Take them to Europe and
even the ants become a bunch of
communists."0