2003-01-07

Ever have a particular word or phrase start popping up everywhere you look? Mine this week is �sucking chest wound.� (Probably best not to ask where I�m looking that the words �sucking chest wound� are turning up all the time.) I�ve always liked that phrase anyway � it�s so disgustingly descriptive, and it makes me laugh, because really, don�t ALL chest wounds kinda suck? I know I�ve never had one that hasn�t. Next time I call in sick for work, I�m going to claim I have a sucking chest wound. Hell, my boss barely speaks English � she won�t know the difference. I wonder what that is in French? Literally translated, it�s �blessure sucant de poitrine.� Sounds like it should come with a side of saut�ed asparagus.

The following is an excerpt from an actual letter that came across my desk for processing. Keep in mind that this fellow does not work for Scouts Canada. He is not submitting an official request for funding on behalf of Scouts Canada. He�s just a private citizen who really thinks Scouting is swell and wants the world to know. I�m not quite sure what to make of his excessive fondness for Boy Scouts, or his fixation on prison inmates.

�If you canvas the Members of Parliament, you will find that most have, at one time, been members of Scouting or Guiding, and that their most altruistic impulses probably derive from that participation. If, however, you canvas the inmates of a maximum security prison, you will find that a smaller proportion had the opportunity to participate, and feel that Scouting �sucks�. Their opinion towards Members of Parliament will be a similar one; although, unfortunately, that opinion is not limited to prison inmates.�

I don�t think I can write anything funnier than THAT today, and I TRY to be funny. I�m not sure what �altruistic� impulses our MPs learned in their mandatory years of Scouting service � a predilection for fondling little boys, perhaps? At any rate, all those fire-starting skills will sure do the nation good if, say, there�s a power outage in the House of Commons. Or something. I don�t think this guy earned his Sanity Badge, sadly.