The Diary of a Canadian Nobody

A responsible account for respectable people,

by

Paul James

Copyright © Statement

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including recording, photocopying, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Paul James

DEDICATIONS

For my family, without whom this book would never have happened. The inspiration they provide and the time they allow me for imagining and typing makes everything possible.

Also, for AC whose thoughts and suggestions make Arthur's life outside the family so stressful and interesting. I hope life has treated her more kindly than her dream for her future prophesied and she has not died of a non-disfiguring illness while lying in a sumptuous bed surrounded by grieving lovers.

Author's Note:

This story takes place in a time that was real and the news items mentioned on the days throughout are also real BUT the characters in the story are NOT. They do borrow from my family, people I know or knew, and me but they are still fictional characters -- no one behaved as they do in the story. To summarize, this book, dear Reader, is FICTION.

Foreword:

Over the past years there’s been many successful books based on diaries and it seems to me that there should be room for one more. Peter Mayle may have his year in Provence, Bridget Jones her year in London, the Edwardian Lady her year in the countryside, and so on, but a Canadian edition has been missing.

I’m convinced Canadians can be just as cutely quirky as the residents of Provence, as sexually slippery as Londoners, or elegantly intellectual as Edwardians; even those of us out here pioneering in a harsh land and climate, at Whitebay, on the outermost eastern fringes of Metropolitan Toronto. We too have a story to tell and posterity requires, no, history demands, it to be told.

Why, you may ask? Well, Peter Mayle makes sport of the Provencal contractors who don’t turn up for work. My experience of Ontario contractors is they are equally as difficult to start, and, when it’s happening to someone else, it’s equally funny. All our friends thought so anyhow.

Bridget Jones, when she’s not trying to stuff goodies into every orifice of her body, makes fun of gyms. We Ontarians know gyms and they’re serious stuff; as my own experience, recorded here in this diary, will demonstrate.

The Edwardian Lady may find that first fragile violet blooming in spring and record it with pride but it’s nothing to the feeling you get on watching your daffodils wilt in a tropical Ontario sun, the day after they first bloomed -- when the snow melted.

Other, cheaper diaries begin on January the first. This one does not, which makes it different right from the start and proves we Canadians are just as uniquely quirky as everyone else is. This one starts on September 1st because that’s the day I thought about writing a diary and did indeed start writing it. I’ve had to use two diaries to record my year, but what the hell anything goes in modern art. It will also allow my publisher to claim, quite honestly, that the buyer is getting TWO for the price of ONE. (My Public Speaking course says ‘start with a joke’ to break the ice and that was the joke. From now on, everything you read here will be a serious account of life in the early 21st Century -- history demands it.)

This diary introduces a new family to the realm of literature -- the Lakeladys, Alys, Lance, Gwen, and me, Arthur. I should give you some background before we get into the diary proper. My father used to be obsessed with his family name, and its allusion to the stories of the Knights of the Round Table, so he named his children after the characters in the stories. I was fortunate, as the eldest boy, I got Arthur; my brothers Galahad and Gawain, were not so lucky. Growing up, I swore I’d never impose such ridiculous names on my own children and stuck firmly to that until I met Alys, who was also besotted by the Middle Ages. I did my best, but Alys is a very determined woman at times and anyway Lancelot and Guinevere can sound quite modern when shortened to Lance and Gwen.

Alys’s love of the Middle Ages comes from reading too many romances as a child; parents be warned, not all reading is good for you. She fell for the noble ideals, the demure feminine gentleness of the heroines and the lusty valour of the heroes. Alys feels the world would be a better place if we all followed that ancient code of chivalry; those good old days, when men were monsters and women were worse. I agree with her because I daren’t do otherwise. Alys appears to have chosen Empress Matilda or Kate from Taming of the Shrew as her models, which seems to point to a weakness in her idyllic vision but it may just be my inability to comprehend. In fact, I know it’s my inability to comprehend because Alys says so -- often.

Before today, the Lakeladys were just your typical unrecorded Ontario family, unsung heroes of the modern world. When this bursts upon the astonished public, they will undoubtedly become as famous as the Pooter’s or the Mayles, or the Jones’ are. This will no doubt mean Mrs. Lakelady getting mobbed in the local supermarket, the children being beaten senseless at school, and Silky, the cat, being catnapped for cash but I’m prepared to risk it for my fifteen minutes in the Sun (preferably snuggling with the Sunshine Girl).

Arthur Lakelady,

3 Merlin Crescent

Whitebay, Ontario.

p.s. No cash will be passed over for Silky so don’t waste your time.

p.p.s. Or the kids either. You have been warned.

p.p.p.s. Finally, I know you’ll say you don’t believe our address. Well, you’re wrong. It’s real and when we saw the ‘For Sale’ listing we just had to buy the house. (Sadly, it’s not actually named after the magician, Merlin; it’s in a subdivision named for birds of prey. I’ve circulated a number of petitions to have the rest of the subdivision streets renamed to a Round Table theme but they have all been mysteriously lost.)

Table of Contents

September 2001: A New Diary

October 2001: War, Halloween and other offences against mankind.

November 2001: Gathering Storm in a Teacup

December 2001: Merry Christmas -- Bah! Humbug.

January 2002: Happy New Year -- I hope.

February 2002: Love is in the air.

March 2002: Goodbye is such sweet sorrow.

April 2002: Starts and ends with a fool

May 2002: May blossom -- yet

June 2002: World Cup runneth over and over and…

July 2002: Canada Day and the last Lakelady family day out

August 2002:

September 2002: Final Days and Final, Final Words

Epilogue

Author Bio

Back to Top

September 2001:

A New Diary

Saturday 1:

Raining hard. Finished re-reading Diary of a Nobody and reason, quite correctly, that the world needs a Canadian voice in Diarists and never so much as at this time. There have been Canadian diarists or, at least, diarists who wrote in Canada but they were all in the past. Posterity requires this era in Canada’s history also be captured by a simple, homespun ordinary man-in-the-street who, in his simple, homespun ordinary way, will shine a light on the darkness that is all about us at the dawning of this new Millennium.

I sat down to write but Alys immediately insisted I stop wasting my time and take part in choosing tiles for our kitchen and bathroom and, although it cost me some precious diary time, it’s as well she did because heaven knows what would have been on the floor if I hadn’t. Perhaps promising twelve-year-old Lance the ‘final say’ wasn’t one of our better ideas but he’s always been so conventional in the past. You would have put money on him choosing a regular blue or brown. I don’t know what’s got into him lately. Perhaps it’s puberty.

I called my father back home in England. He has conjunctivitis in one eye and feels very unwell. He can’t get out because he can’t see through the gummy mess sticking his eyelids together. Gawain, my youngest brother, lives with him but doesn’t like to leave the house (being called Gawain has a lot to do with that) and watches videos when he’s not at work. I think they may starve now that Dad’s health is failing.

Here in Ontario, the inquiry into the Walkerton disaster last May wrapped up. For those of you not familiar with this particular man-made disaster, flooding in farm fields carried manure into the town’s water supply, which, despite Ontario and Canada being a developed country in the 21st Century, failed to deal with it. Nine people died. The enquiry has exposed the amazing way small Ontario towns run their affairs as much as anything; nepotism reigns in the hinterland and lack of qualifications isn’t a bar to people doing technical work. I’ve no doubt it was considered a triumph over ‘qualification discrimination’, at the time.

Sunday 2:

Choosing tiles is the most difficult part of the process or, at least, I hope it is. After yesterday's trawl around two tile shops with a sulking Lance, Alys and I trawled around another three on our own today. We didn’t choose any tiles, there are so many to pick from, but I was able to settle down to my diary when we got home because Alys and I were no longer on speaking terms.

I intend for the diary to become like Pepys’ Diary, a record of our time that will be used by historians in centuries to come. Thus, it will include comments not only on the family, the nation, international events (where they impinge on the Lakeladys) and the climate, this last part being vitally important to future generations in proving Global Warming -- or not. I hope my various readers will skip the parts they don’t like and concentrate on the parts relevant to them. (You can skip the whole thing if you like, provided you buy it and not wait for the library to provide you with a free copy.)

It’s time I told you something about the Lakelady family. Alys, Mrs. Lakelady, is tall for her weight, blonde when the occasion demands it and is a strong, read fierce, supporter of me doing well at work. Gwen, our daughter, takes after her Mother physically but I like to think has my most endearing characteristics. Lance, our son, does take after me and I look exactly like Pierce Brosnan or Sean Connery (either of those Celtic movie stars) would look if they were shorter, stockier (but thinner on top), and bespectacled. Silky, our cat, is a long-haired slut who spends most of her life on her back with her legs in the air, seducing passers-by into tickling her tummy, or arching her back lewdly at anything vaguely male. Fortunately, she has been fixed or we’d be the proud possessors of a strange collection of hybrids.

Monday 3:

The Head, President and CEO of the company I work for, an American, Mr. Al Genuflecten-Grovel, announced last Friday that he is reorganising the company again because, apparently, none of the previous four re-organisations cured our problems. For a wild moment, I imagined Mrs. Genuflecten-Grovel timidly asking her husband to decorate the living-room, all the while hoping and praying he doesn’t begin by levelling the house like he did last time she suggested a change of wallpaper might brighten up the place. Perhaps he has more sense at home, where the damage he does hits his own wallet, unlike work where the damage he does hit ours but gets him more stock options and a bigger bonus. Mr. Genuflecten-Grovel is a firm believer in the notion that activity equals achievement, despite all the evidence to the contrary

I tried hard not to think the company’s problems were created by the constant mania for re-organisation, because I’m ‘management’ and must put on a brave face for the definitely sullen employees. I wasn’t successful in convincing me; I only hope it works on the employees. Not only are we downsizing this time, but we're also spinning off divisions too and the announcements sound like an advert for ‘Crazy Zee’s Carpet Emporium’ -- ‘Everything must go!’ ‘No reasonable offer refused!’

Today, senior management told us about the Restructuring Team they’ve already formed of, you guessed, senior managers who will award themselves plum posts in the new organisation, as they always have in the past. I am full of foreboding. After the last re-organisation, I spent a year in a windowless broom closet before I was given an office with a window and staff again. Gerry, a colleague at work who is a bit of a comic, says my change in fortune was ‘when they realised I couldn’t take a hint.’ Whatever the reason, it was ‘a close run thing’ as the Duke of Wellington said about Waterloo. (My Public Speaking course says apt quotes from famous people are good too.) The only concrete fact we got from today’s announcement is that the re-organisation will be complete by the end of the year so we can start the New Year in a new leaner shape. Some hope!

Went to the gym, as usual. Did usual routine, 20 minutes running and walking on the treadmill, followed by abs and arms machines. It is still no easier despite it being almost a year now since I started; perhaps the sinking feeling in my stomach from the fire sale announcements made me weak.

In the afternoon, a strange thing happened. A woman I’ve never seen before came into my office and said, ‘Are you Arthur Lakelady?’ I replied I was. She handed me a small, heavy package and left before I could say anything more. I felt a little like my namesake must have felt when the Lady of the Lake handed him Excalibur; i.e. I wasn’t sure this was a blessing or a curse. When I felt a steady pulsing beat coming from the package, I left my office quickly and called Security. Since the downtown Anthrax scares of last year, we’ve had lots of memos on what to do with strange packages and I’m proud to say I followed the procedures perfectly, clearing the floor, isolating the area, and everything.

My performance was commended right up to the moment news of it reached the thirty-fifth floor when the CEO’s Admin Assistant realised my fifteen-year service clock was in danger of being detonated by a Police SWAT team. I still feel that, had there been some ceremony attached to the handover, I wouldn’t have jumped to the, as it turned out, wrong conclusion. I didn’t press my case, however, to the Senior Executive-Vice-President of Human Resources; instead, I listened politely to his not-so-polite speech absolving his office of all blame. It wasn’t a good day at work.

Tuesday 4:

Didn’t get to the gym because of an important meeting. Can’t now remember what it was about. Work was very uneventful because everyone stood around the water cooler and coffee stations discussing the re-organisation. I kept away. I don’t want people to get the impression I have so little to do I can stand around chatting all day and I wish the others in our department felt the same way. Who knows who is watching? I could be swept away with the others if the department I’m in is considered redundant. I should warn Mr. Ogilvie, the Department Director, of the danger the rest of his staff are placing us in.

In the evening, I intended to write a speech for my next Public Speaking course assignment but Alys insisted we start tearing up the linoleum on the kitchen floor. She is still annoyed about my not liking the pink tiles on Sunday. She says she knows I’ll never lay tiles as long as there’s a covering on the floor so she wants the covering removed.

Linoleum is tougher than it looks and we’d cleared only a small portion before bedtime. Unfortunately, we found another layer of the stuff immediately below the one Alys no longer likes. Sadly, she doesn’t like the lower layer either.

Gwen started working at the local leisure centre last night as a swimming instructor and lifeguard, which is well paid and a good start to her Running-Away-To-University fund. I mention this because it is having an unfortunate side effect on Silky, our cat, and me. Silky likes to lie on my legs when I settle down for the last few minutes before bedtime. Normally, she sleeps there till we turn off the late night news about 10:45, at which point she jumps off and hides under the coffee table till we’ve gone to bed. (We don’t know why she hides under the coffee table; presumably, it’s some kind of race memory of cats being thrown out of the house down the ages.) With Gwen working late, any phone calls for her are also late. These calls terrify the sleeping Silky and she leaps off my knee in fright. Tonight is only the second night and already my thighs are torn to shreds by her claws. If this continues, I will have bled to death by Friday.

Wednesday 5:

Got to gym, usual routine -- still no easier. Work was again at a standstill while people discussed the lack of new announcements from the restructuring team and what it all meant for them. I think our bosses may be right. There must be too many people in the company because nobody’s working and yet nothing has stopped working. It’s as I’ve long suspected; I’m the one keeping the whole place going. I’m more than ever determined not to join the chattering groups in the halls.

The price of tiles is frightening. I worked it out in the morning and reviewed our household accounts in the afternoon. I wonder if Alys is fully aware of the cost of her whim?

Alys, it seems, is aware of cost and means to continue. We do better removing linoleum this evening and lift it almost all the way to the patio door. Lance helps until I suggest he be a little more careful with the utility knife. He returns to his Mephisto III game on the computer, sulking. It must be puberty.

Silky had another go at my thighs when Gwen called for a lift home. Should I get tetanus shots?

Thursday 6:

Didn’t get to the gym because I had an important meeting where I’m told I am to be ‘Acting Director’ while Mr. Ogilvie, the real Director, is on a training course next week. I tell Alys by phone and she asks, “Will you get more money?” I check with Mr. Ogilvie, who says, scornfully I thought, “Yes, 2% more.” Alys says it’s not enough and I should demand more. Persuade her not to come to the office to ‘have it out’ with Mr. Ogilvie by telling her I will discuss it with him personally. Become very busy and don’t have time to see Mr. Ogilvie.

Didn’t join the ‘chattering classes’ in the corridors and watering holes but worked on my Public Speaking speech for next Tuesday night instead. My topic is Globalisation and the Individual. I think I’m well placed to talk on that considering what I’ve gone through at work this past ten years -- unlike our politicians who promote the globalisation concept. They don't see any global competition in their industry; instead, they see growth in their business because of it. Is this the real cause of globalisation?

When we lifted linoleum all the way to the patio doors, we found the underlying linoleum very discoloured. Lance, who was helping again, stomped heavily on the patch then, when nothing exciting came of that, unwisely began jumping up and down on the spot. I was just thinking fondly about the way that pubescent kids flip between angry adults and cheerful children when he went right through the floor. Not right through so he landed in the basement; only one foot reached the basement, breaking the false ceiling down there and leaving the rest of him howling on the kitchen floor. His leg was very badly scratched, almost as bad as mine after a week of Silky’s claws, but his pride was what really got hurt when I called him an idiot. After Alys had treated his wounds, he went off to sulk at the computer. Alys says it’s cute that Lance has called his Mephisto III ‘villains’, Arthur and Alys. Personally, I don’t like the way ‘Arthur’ and ‘Alys’ are tortured, mutilated and then killed, night after night. Is this healthy?

Friday 7:

Got to gym, usual routine and still no easier. Later, on our local commuter train, the GO train, I commented on this to Gerry and am told, “Going 2 or 3 times a week is just maintenance. You need to do much more to get any improvement.” I sarcastically asked him how he would know seeing as he’s never done any exercise since leaving High School.

Gerry was indignant at my assumption that he does no exercise and ranted on, for most of the journey home, about the Extreme Frisbee game he plays at an isolated farm up north every other weekend. The game, so far as I could tell, is played with Olympic weight discuses, a large pack of junkyard dogs, and a lot of flammable liquids. It sounded unlikely but no more so than the Fear Factor game show on TV.

Gerry, apparently, subscribes to Extreme Runner magazine, which recommends two periods of running every day. Each run should last 5 hours with a brief cool-down period between for taking in a high protein and carbohydrate meal (previously known as ‘lunch’ and later as ‘power lunch’). Said meal to consist of ‘Extreme’-ly rare T-bone steak (2 lbs. post-cooked, bone removed weight) in a 4 lbs. bowl of ‘Extreme’-ly a la dente pasta drizzled with ‘Extreme’-ly extra virgin olive oil and cilantro. If you don’t follow this regime there’s no benefit; no sexily toned torso on the runner and hence, no sexily toned model on the runner’s sexily toned arm.

I made extremely satirical snorting noises but secretly wonder if he isn’t right, certainly one year of what I’m doing has done nothing for me. I go into shock at seven minutes, a cold, clammy sweat breaks out everywhere as the sane part of my mind realises that, despite telling the rest of me there isn’t a sabre-toothed tiger anywhere in sight, the irrational rest of me isn’t going to stop. At 9 minutes my breath goes, hot sweat pours out at 11 minutes, and I’m walking by 13 minutes. By 17 minutes, I’m crawling on all fours (actually, at the beginning – now only metaphorically).

Regarding the olive oil mentioned above, I don’t know much about the sex life of olives (I dropped biology early at school but I have heard some olives do get stuffed though until now I believed it was cookery term). [Note: check to see if that last part is really a joke or not] {Note to self: remove last note before publication, particularly if first note is confirmed as a joke]. But it seems to me ‘Extreme and extra’ are redundant phrases in describing virgins. One is either not a virgin or one is; no matter how many sweaty fingers have tested the fruit.

After work, I put a piece of wood over the hole in the kitchen floor and continued lifting linoleum.

Saturday 8:

This morning, as I waited to turn left out of Merlin Crescent onto the main road, I was looking to the right for a gap in the traffic when on my left side there was a thump that shook the car. Then a young woman in spandex shorts and a loose T-shirt skittered across the hood in front of me before falling off the other side. I jumped out, very concerned, but fortunately she was uninjured. She was shaking with fright and I couldn’t help noticing her breasts had come out from her bra and they were jiggling about like anything. I had a strong urge to calm her with a big hug but felt it safest not to.

After she’d gone, and I’d settled down, it came to me I must work harder at my Public Speaking course, and perhaps add Assertiveness Training as well. I need more ‘visibility’ because this isn’t the first time this has happened. Once, when I was younger, I was knocked from my motorbike and trampled by a pedestrian who failed to see me while crossing the road to catch a bus. Today’s incident is particularly puzzling. A Ford Taurus station wagon isn’t a small car and pale blue isn’t a camouflage colour so I can only put this and the earlier mishap down, in some way, to my lack of ‘presence.’ Fortunately, no one at work seems to have noticed my invisibility. I expect that’s the effect of the Public Speaking.

Continued to Home Terminal, our only remaining local (because it’s global) home renovation store, and bought new chipboard and sub-floor, all the while wondering if I shouldn’t have done more to calm that beautiful young cyclist; her breasts spoke of considerable agitation. I was also worried the accident was my fault because maybe I was so preoccupied with things and did something wrong. What if her Dad is a lawyer?

At lunchtime, I called my dad, who was not a lawyer. He was a nurse and retirement has left him too much time to diagnose himself. His conjunctivitis has spread to both eyes and he has new medication. It’s so bad he can’t see to watch TV. I decide not to mention how shaken I am by the cyclist incident or weakened by my Silky-lacerated thighs.

We have finally chosen some tiles. A nearby store, the Olde Worlde Tile Shoppe, had tiles we could agree on so we bought them and a neat border that sets them off brilliantly. We were so pleased with our success that Alys and I celebrated with a coffee and doughnut at Timmy’s Coffee Emporium.

Sunday 9:

The reason Lance went through the floor is because water has seeped in under the patio doors and rotted the chipboard. I spent the day clearing out the remaining loose chips and preparing to lift the broken panel. That means lifting the lower layer of linoleum, which turns out to be glued to the floor. I let Alys and Lance work on the linoleum while I tried to raise the broken wood. They started squabbling and I refereed for a time till I got sick of it and grounded Lance for a week. I wanted to ground Alys because she was the one causing the problem but didn’t dare. Lance took this very badly and stormed off to his room, no doubt to mutilate ‘Arthur’ and ‘Alys’ again. We hadn’t finished raising the linoleum by evening so we gave up for the day. Actually, Alys had worked herself up into such a state we fell out, despite my best efforts to placate her, and she stormed off to shower. I took this as a sign my shift was over too.

Later, when Alys was safely out of earshot, Gwen told me, very forcefully, that I had to stand up to Alys more and not always take her side. Gwen says it’s bad for Alys to always get her own way. I agree, weakly, so she’ll go away and stop scolding me but the thought of my life if I took Gwen’s advice returned as nightmares and kept me awake most of the night. I’m writing this at 4 am! (Note to self: remove this part before publication.) It will be good for Gwen to go away to University and for me too if she’s going to start pushing me into fights with Alys.

Thought from the early hours: In the olden days, when kids reached adulthood they were given the key to the door. Nowadays, sensible parents change the locks.

Monday 10:

This is the week I’m ‘Acting’ Director. I would have been more pleased if Mr. Ogilvie hadn’t ordered me to seek Gerry’s advice if anything came up, and if he hadn’t also made every one of his direct reports ‘Acting Director’ before me -- when I’m the oldest. Actually, I think I’m the oldest Section Manager in the whole corporation but I daren’t confide that to Alys. She may make a fuss. As well, now that I think about it, all the other section managers got to be ‘Acting Director’ for longer periods of time -- like Mr. Ogilvie’s vacations. I wonder if I should make a fuss?

My section’s work on administrative procedures is progressing nicely. We have ten procedures out for First Internal Review, seven out for Second Internal Review, four out for Third Internal Review and two out for First External Review. Not bad, considering we’ve only been going four years and there’s considerable resistance to the whole concept of administrative, or any other kind of, procedures. We’re fighting every inch of the way against appalling apathy.

Didn’t go to the gym, awaiting important Directorial calls. There were none.

In the evening, continued lifting linoleum with Lance and Alys, who has graciously forgiven me for her bad temper last night. I estimate we will still be lifting linoleum at Christmas because the glue is in fine shape after all its years of service. I wish I knew whose glue it was, I’d write and commend them on their product. However, I expect they are out of business now because nobody would need to buy the stuff twice.

Back to normal on the Silky scratched thighs front, and I mean front. Perhaps I should lie face down on the couch on alternate days to spread the damage. Perhaps Gwen could stop work? I don’t want to stop Silky sleeping on my lap because if she does this much damage when we’re friends I can’t imagine what she’d do if we weren’t.

Lance had an accident cycling to school today; he was very badly shaken and scratched so he lay on the couch all evening (until I kicked him off so Silky could have her evening sleep). Alys fussed around him, foolishly encouraging him in the worst way. I don’t think there’ll be any real men left in the world soon, the way we coddle boys nowadays.

Tuesday 11:

On the morning GO train, Gerry and I joked about it being the International Day of Peace; it said so in our free commuter newspaper. The idea of peace in this world seemed unlikely at 7 am and it seemed ludicrous by lunchtime. My first inkling that this wasn’t just any old ‘international day of peace’ came about 10 am when Renee, my Admin Assistant, said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. I murmured suitably sad phrases; other people’s aerial misfortunes make me uncomfortable because I’m not a good flyer, and I continued with my essential work. The news that a second plane had hit the building and one had hit the Pentagon as well sent my stomach into free-fall.

“Everybody’s watching it on the Emergency Centre TVs,” Renee told me, so we elevated ourselves to the 25th floor to join the rest of the company’s staff crushed in the Centre or peering through the door.

Our Emergency Centre is well equipped with TVs and seeing myriad planes crash into myriad buildings was grotesque. As the buildings collapsed, the crowd began to edge out of the room. Perhaps the knowledge they were on an upper floor of a tall building in Toronto and not so very far from the airport was beginning to make itself felt.

“Shouldn’t we evacuate?” one of my staff asked me and I was tempted to say flippantly that I already had when I realised they were genuinely frightened and needed a serious managerial answer.

After reassuring my staff, I returned to my desk where the phone was ringing. It was Alys, who reminded me we knew someone in the World Trade Center. She's doing an MBA correspondence course and the University’s MBA office was on the first floor of the WTC. She’d been talking to them only the week before about her last and next assignments. The pile of rubble I’d just seen on TV probably included her assignments and the pleasant woman who’d received them. It’s hard to believe that this touched our lives even though we are so far away.

Didn’t go to the gym, too sickened by events.

When I got home, Alys told me my night class is cancelled. No one wants to do anything today and we didn’t do linoleum lifting either. Carrying on with normal life seemed wrong somehow. At least, in the coming days, I'll have more time to prepare my speech; the presentation is now next Tuesday.

Wednesday 12:

It turns out the Olde Worlde Tile Shoppe can’t get our tiles and we must choose some new ones. They are closed by the time I get home so Alys says we’ll go tomorrow and I’m to get home early, which will be easy to do now that I’m Director. ‘Say you’re going golfing,’ was her sarcastic suggestion, when I argued I should set a good example and stay later, not leave early. But maybe I will leave early; Alys would be happy and no at work one will ever know. I haven’t had one Director-type call or meeting since the week began.

I booked my car into the usual place for its usual service. Really, the fact I’ve mentioned that tells you how dull a day it’s been. No work was done at work; everyone was poring over newspapers and listening to the radio for the latest on terrorists. I’m worried we’ll lose momentum on the new ‘Expense Report’ procedure. Luckily the ‘Application for Unpaid Leave’ procedure is at the external review stage or it too would be at risk.

Went to the gym because I can’t go tomorrow if I’m leaving early. Also, tonight is the night!

The evening wasn’t any more exciting than the day. Lance refused to help his mom lift linoleum so I had to leave the hole in floor and scrape linoleum instead. Alys brought in the garden spade from the garage and we used that, but it’s still backbreaking work. The spade occasionally digs into the wooden sub-floor and gouges it. At first, that upset me because all those gouges will have to be filled if we’re going to lay level tiles but by 10 pm I no longer cared and now the floor is a mess. Alys refused to speak to me after I muttered this was a dumb idea more times than she cared for.

After collecting Gwen from work and before going to bed, I reviewed my naked body in the closet door mirror. Today is the first anniversary of my starting the gym and I’m taking stock. I look like one of those ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos, only it’s the ‘before’ photo when it should be the ‘after’ one.

Height -- 5ft 9 and three-quarters ins., down from 5 ft 10. What’s going on?

Weight -- up 5 lbs. Action: I will record my progress every Monday and Friday from now on to increase focus on this challenge (that’s modern management speak for sort out my problem).

Body Mass Index (BMI) – 27.5, up from 27 a year ago.

Waist -- 36 inches, exactly as it was a year ago. My waist is the whole reason I went to the gym. I’ve been a 34 in waist man since I was twenty and the sudden jump up in pant size shocked me into action.

Muscle tone -- same. No sign of rippling ‘washboard’ abs yet.

Folds of flab on stomach -- no discernible change. There’s still, at least, two inches worth when grabbed by an unfriendly hand. In this case Alys’s unfriendly hand, her sharpened nails tell me she hasn’t forgiven me for the ‘dumb idea’ comments.

“I like a man with love-handles,” my beloved beanpole quips cattily.

We won’t be spoon-hugging in bed tonight.

Thursday 13:

On the train, I recounted the floor saga to Gerry and he says I’m doing it all wrong. Extreme Renovator, another magazine he reads, recommends leaving the linoleum in place. A suggestion so sensible that I have trouble believing he read it properly. However, my faith in human nature is restored when he continues, ‘But they don’t recommend tiles.’ What I should have done is called in a redi-mix truck and poured an inch of concrete on the floor, topping it off with solid marble slabs shipped specially from Sicily. That’s the only floor covering being laid this year by extreme renovators.

Is it possible Director’s do nothing? I ponder this question all day because I have even less work this week than I normally have when I’m responding to Mr. Ogilvie’s insatiable demands for updates, reports, graphs, feedback, strategic plans, etc. If Mr. Ogilvie’s sole purpose is to make work for me and the other section managers, and my sole purpose is to carry out the work he invents for me, what am I to make of my career, the company’s future prospects, and the capitalist system in general? I’m glad when four o’ clock arrives and I can go home. I don’t share my doubts about the future of capitalism with Gerry or Alys. They would point out the flaw in my reasoning and I’d feel stupid. I’m certain to spot the flaw soon enough without their assistance and I’ll laugh at my fears privately.

Leave early (so no gym) and, with Alys, wander around the Olde Worlde Tile Shoppe looking at alternate tiles and borders. Unfortunately, we are back at the stage where we can’t agree and we leave, barely speaking, without choosing anything.

I began work on the hole in the floor, which took my mind off the flaw.

Friday 14:

Today, my last day as Acting Director, was quiet and I was able to concentrate my mind on the flaw (not the floor) in my reasoning about the capitalist system and, I’m ashamed to admit, was unable to spot it.

And nothing vaguely Directorial was required of me. I considered calling a meeting of all my, well, Mr. Ogilvie’s, direct reports but didn’t -- because I knew they wouldn’t come. Few of them have been in much this week at all. No doubt they too have been under-utilised without Mr. Ogilvie’s constant demand for updates. I spent the afternoon writing a ‘handover’ memo from me to Mr. Ogilvie so he would know what happened while I was in charge. By four o’ clock I hadn’t filled one side of a sheet of paper so I decided to give him a ‘verbal update’ on Monday morning.

On the train, Gerry asked me how I liked being Director and I replied vaguely by laying heavy stress on the extra work and responsibility. He nodded and said that’s what he’d found the three times he’d been acting Director. I changed the subject.

Removing the broken chipboard panel from the floor wasn’t simple and my temper was not improved by listening to Alys, Lance, and Gwen laughing at a ‘Simpsons’ episode about home renovation on the family room TV. Eventually, I stopped work -- right after hitting my kneecap with the mallet as I tried to bash off a recalcitrant piece of board. Alys was so disgusted with my language she refused to spoon-hug in bed again. I think we may be growing apart.

Weight: minus 1 lb. Good.

Saturday 15:

I call dad. His conjunctivitis is better but he has a blocked tear duct and needs an operation. Gawain is prostrate after injuring his back reaching for a fallen videocassette. My bruised knee doesn’t seem so bad today and I don’t mention it.

The floor panel is finally out. Unfortunately, a piece of it is under the sliding patio door frame and can’t be removed without removing the door, which means I have nothing on which to support the new panel all along that edge. After studying the problem, I bought a 2x6 plank, cut it into pieces, sealed it with wood preserver, and nailed the pieces to the beam under the door. Of course the new panel still didn’t fit because it couldn’t get under the doorframe and I had to cut an inch off the full length of the panel. I covered the new panel with water sealant and nailed it down with pounds of nails. Alys, Gwen and Lance went out for the day so as ‘not to be in the way.’ They had a good time, except Lance bashed his knee on the car door and he's now hobbling around in a comical fashion. Of course his mother is paying him all the attention he wants. Maybe I should make more fuss about my aches and pains, particularly my bruised knee.

Sunday 16:

After sealing the new chipboard panel for a second time I sealed the new sub-floor and nailed it on top of the chipboard. I amused myself during all this satisfactory trades’ work (why didn’t I become a carpenter?) by imagining how Extreme Renovator would do it. My family kept out of the way again -- and had a good time again, despite Lance’s bruised knee, which, I’m told, is much worse than mine.

Monday 17:

Spent all day trying to see Mr. Ogilvie and update him on what happened. I couldn’t see him because he was in meetings all day. Question: Does this help me in finding the flaw in my reasoning? Answer: No.

Didn’t go to the gym, awaiting Mr. Ogilvie’s call.

In the evening, I filled the gouges and other holes in the floor with wood filler and began finding beams. Every floor in this house creaks and groans when you walk on it and I’m determined this floor won’t when I’ve finished because every loose board will be nailed and screwed to a beam. By bedtime, the floor was neatly crisscrossed with lines showing where the beams were. Tomorrow, I'll nail the boards to the beams, followed by screwing on the weekend. (I can just about remember when ‘screwing on the weekend’ meant something more exciting.) Some days my genius just shines.

Weight: plus 2 lbs. Not so good.

Tuesday 18:

After realising I was getting nowhere on the phone, I went along to Mr. Ogilvie’s office where his secretary, a motherly lady called Eunice, told me he was busy. However, I saw him through his window hunching over something, and then swaying sideways before walking the length of his office to bend down and pick something up. I’m sure he was practising his putting. I wish I played golf but Alys won’t hear of it. She says we can’t afford it and anyway she isn’t being left alone all weekend with the kids. Sometimes I don’t think Alys is a very natural mother.

Didn’t go to the gym, awaiting Mr. Ogilvie’s call.

Reserved automatic screw gun for Saturday and Sunday from our local Rent-All store and calculated the number of screws I’d need if I put one screw every four inches along the beams. Then I re-calculated using every six inches to see if it was worth saving some money.

I gave my speech on globalisation this evening to the Public Speaking class and it was well received by my class leader and fellow pupils. They too are apprehensive about the future. My next speech is in one month’s time and I’m mildly concerned I haven’t got a topic yet.

When I got home, I told Alys about my successful first speech and she said, “That’s nice, dear.” With all the encouragement I give her on her MBA, only last week I took Lance and Gwen to the movies so she could revise, you’d think she could be a bit more positive for my night class.

Wednesday 19:

Eunice says, “Mr. Ogilvie is out of the office today at a meeting.” Gerry says golfing. I fear that’s the Directorial secret I’ve been missing.

The statement above led me to think of the subtle flexibility of the English language. When top honchos tell us to ‘treat the company’s money as if it were your own’ we mere minions hear ‘be careful and sparing in your use of the company’s money because it’s not yours’ but senior managers hear ‘it’s your money, have fun.’ I suspect that’s true in every corporation in the world, except those where the owner still controls, which is why owner controlled companies grow the fastest. I haven’t taken economics but I bet you could easily show that countries grow fastest when their economic engines are run by owners and stand still when the engines are being ‘managed’ by highly paid honchos. I think that’s the real reason Japan hasn't grown for the last few years, all the original Mr. Hondas, Matsushitas, et al died around 1990.

Went to the gym because I’ve had a brilliant idea. My strategy till now has been to remove 2 inches from my waist and it hasn’t worked. Yesterday, in another momentary flash of genius, I realised that, if I put 2 inches on my chest, the result would be the body shape I'm aiming for. I’ve added new arm, shoulder and chest machines to my usual routine. What’s even better about this strategy is I could actually eat more to ‘bulk up’ as they say, which is pretty well what I’m doing anyhow.

Gwen’s soccer team is still playing outdoors because Canada goose droppings made their home field unusable in the spring and early summer. Tonight’s game was a tie as both teams wanted only to keep warm and stopping the game to pick the ball out of the net would have prevented that. The parents kept warm by watching from their cars. Lance’s team finished outdoors two weeks ago and tonight Alys won the toss to stay home and help him with his homework.

Thursday 20:

I didn’t ask to see Mr. Ogilvie today because he sent an e-mail demanding an interim progress report for his meeting with the vice-presidents (all stratum, ranks and grades) tomorrow and I spent the day putting the report together. I wish I knew what the VPs are going to be talking about. I suspect it’s to do with the re-organisation and I’d like to slant my report in a way that would help me (and my section) live through it.

My arms, shoulders and chest ache from yesterday and my new gym strategy. Still, as they say, no pain, no gain. Didn’t go to gym today, doing Mr. Ogilvie’s report.

President Bush has demanded the Taliban government of Afghanistan hand over Osama Bin Laden, the man the Americans blame for masterminding the WTC bombing. The Taliban say they won’t hand him over without proof he was involved, a measured and restrained response you wouldn’t normally expect from fanatics. As the Americans have made similar negative responses in the past to countries requesting extradition from American soil, you can be sure they will be furious at being hoist by their own petard.

When I got home, Lance greeted me at the door holding up his hand for me to see his horribly swollen pinkie finger jutting out at 45 degrees from the rest. It was a gruesome sight, pasty white between the knuckles with black circles running around the joints. It was clearly broken, something the school hadn’t noticed all day as he’d injured himself playing basketball in gym class at ten o’ clock in the morning. We went to the doctor’s surgery where we waited 45 minutes before getting examined.

“Broken,” said the doctor after about a minute’s inspection. “You’d best go to the hospital. They can x-ray it and they have a Fracture Clinic where it can be properly treated because fingers are tricky. They like to get them right first time otherwise they have to be broken again and reset.”

Went to Emergency and the receptionist sent us to see a nurse. “Broken,” said the nurse after a minute’s inspection. “Go back to reception and they’ll fill in your details.” Reception filled in a form and entered us into the computer. We were sent to a waiting room full of horribly sick people and we waited. An hour later, we were sent to a tiny corner in a corridor that was doubling as another waiting room, to wait again with two other teenage boys with swollen hands and fingers.

Another hour passed before a doctor came and examined the boys. “Probably broken,” he said to Lance, and sent us to the x-ray department, where we waited another hour in the company of the other two who were also ‘probably broken’.

After the x-raying, which lasted 5 minutes, we were sent back to the corner to wait for another hour. At which time, the doctor returned with the x-rays and dispensed his diagnoses, one was just swollen and he needed to put ice on it. The next was Lance. His finger is broken and the doctor strapped the broken finger to its neighbour with sticky tape and we were sent home just after ten o’ clock at night. I don't think any comment from me could improve on this episode.

Friday 21:

After checking with Eunice, and being assured Mr. Ogilvie wouldn’t want to see me today because of the important meeting he has to attend, I went to the gym to continue my brilliant new strategy.

While I was out, Mr. Ogilvie finally called me to his office. The voice message was waiting when I got back. Does he watch me go out? I rushed to his office because he didn’t sound pleased but before I could explain my absence or tell him about last week he demanded to know why I’d let Gerry do everything while he was away? I didn’t know what to say, then I remembered Mr. Ogilvie telling me to get Gerry’s advice before doing anything and so, to make it sound like I was involved in whatever Gerry did, I reminded him of his words.

“Advice is one thing but you have to take the lead when you’re Director, Lakelady,” he stormed, leaving me to harbour dark thoughts about my colleague. What Directorial things did Gerry do and I didn’t? I couldn’t ask Mr. Ogilvie or he’d know I didn’t know and I didn’t want him to know I didn’t know. Nor could I ask Gerry because then he’d know I knew he’d stabbed me in the back and he’d become my mortal enemy -- because nobody trusts someone they’ve previously cheated.

Lance’s soccer team had its first indoor practice tonight. I don’t stay to watch practises anymore because nowadays, the quiz comes only at the end of games. At thirteen, kids know what they do in practice isn’t worth questioning but still hold the after game quiz ‘did you see me do…?’ Gwen, from her advanced age, no longer even does that. I rather miss it.

Weight: minus 1 lb. Good.

Saturday 22:

Dad has his eye operation booked for next week. “Being a pensioner gets you special treatment,” he snaps, when I ask how come he got in so soon; he’s always complaining that the British National Health Service makes everyone wait for years to have surgery because that’s what he reads in his newspaper. I foolishly changed the subject by asking if his conjunctivitis is better and he says it is -- but now he’s having problems with his stomach and he’s going for tests on Monday. Gawain has returned to work after his back problem. He's walking with a stick, which may be permanent because something unpronounceable has gone wrong with his discs. As I am in good health, if you ignore the cuts and bruises from Silky and the floor, and aches and pains from the gym, I commiserate with my usual lack of genuine sympathy.

I told Dad about our experience in the Emergency Room and he says we’d have waited twice as long for half the attention over there. Modern day Britons believe everything is worse in Britain; it’s a form of inverted superiority. If they can’t be the best at everything like they used to be then they’re damned well going to be the worst at everything.

Picked up screw gun and 5 lbs. of screws from the Rent-All store. Screwing all day, ha-ha. (Note to reader: That’s so weak it doesn’t count as a joke.) By lunchtime, I have at least a hundred screws half way into the floor. Their heads (and the drill bit) are burned beyond use, and I’ve had to buy another drill bit. The Rent-All man was very suspicious about what I’m doing with his tool, claiming no one has ever worn out even one end of the double-ended bit before. By mid-afternoon, I’m getting better at it and I still have one end of the new drill bit left. I stopped to break off the stuck screws and let the family test the floor for creaks. They claim not to hear any improvement. I think the Rent-All man is paying them.

By suppertime, the family gives a grudging admission of improvement. I asked Gwen, who this morning claimed she had never heard the floor squeak in the past, to walk on the floor and circle any squeaks she finds with a felt marker. This turns out not to be a good idea. Gwen now claims it all squeaks and draws overlapping circles everywhere. By bedtime, I have used the whole box of screws and Gwen says the floor still squeaks. My arms, chest, and back all ache from using the screw gun -- still, no pain, no gain.

Sunday 23:

Alys’s Birthday

I gave Alys her presents quickly then zipped down to the Rent-All store for another 5 lbs. of screws and another drill bit. Fortunately, it’s a different Assistant and he hands them over without comment. Screwing all day again and that’s no joke, my back is killing me by the time I’m finished. However, the floor is squeak-free. Alys isn’t pleased that I made so little of her birthday so we won’t spoon-hug in bed -- again.

Gwen and Lance took Alys out for lunch and the day, partly as a birthday treat and partly to keep out of the way while I screwed up the automatic screwdriver -- and occasionally the boards on the floor. Lance tried to lift his sister during some horseplay while they were out and hurt his back (he’s forgotten about his finger). Alys, of course, fusses over him telling him to take it easy and not strain himself. Like he would do that! If she keeps mollycoddling him this way, he’ll soon be a confirmed invalid.

President Bush says he wants Bin Laden ‘dead or alive.’ Coming from Texas makes the President seem a little odd sometimes. Don’t they have rules about ‘reasonable force’ and ‘innocent until proven guilty’ down there?

Monday 24:

Work again and Mr. Ogilvie didn’t update us on his Friday meeting with the VPs so I’m even more convinced it was about our department in the re-organisation. Everyone else obviously agrees because the conversation at the water coolers is now half on terrorism and half on downsizing. It’s a wonder our company keeps going with so little production from everybody. The cut and thrust of capitalism must be happening somewhere else.

George Bush told us the other day that if we’re not for him, we must be against him, which suggests the President doesn’t know the world very well. I’m sure half a billion people are with him, another half-billion are against, and the other six billion or more of the world’s population couldn’t care less. Unilaterally lumping 6 billion neutrals into the ‘against’ column is a bad idea. Today Mr. Bush announced that Afghanistan would be better off without the Taliban, something most reasonable observers pointed out when the US began arming these nutcases a few years back.

In the evening, after supper, Alys and I cleaned up the floor so the tile layers can start anytime. Gwen and Lance had homework so were unable to help. Lance’s homework involved a lot of automobile noises, which I think had more to do with ‘Stolen in Sixty Seconds’ than science. I suppose computer games could be considered ‘science’. And if he fails science, at least he’s now trained as a car thief, a serial killer, an assassin, or a Universal Soldier. There are so many different careers opened up to teenage boys today compared to when I was a lad.

Weight: plus 2 lbs. No comment.

Tuesday 25:

Lance’s birthday. He’s now officially a teenager.

I know adolescents have to revolt against their parent’s rules and values in order to get up enough momentum to leave the nest but today’s adolescents have to pierce and tattoo every part of their bodies to get the same level of horror we excited with our long hair or short skirts. Body piercing and tattooing may not be life threatening, but they’re dangerous enough. And the future can only get worse. The result of our present lax standards is teenagers have an unenviable choice, being scarred for life or, worse, not leaving home at all.

This rant has been brought to you by courtesy of Lance getting his ears pierced to celebrate his accession to teenage-hood. This puberty thing is going too far.

Wednesday 26:

Lance’s sudden shift to being fashion conscious makes me feel I need to update posterity on what we men are wearing, as well as how we live. So, because nothing of any significance happened today, I’m taking this opportunity to illustrate. I wish to state clearly that Arthur Lakelady is not wearing anything reported below, or ever will. Gerry, however, likes to keep up with fashion. Now that Western men have stopped trying to achieve something, they've become quite giddy with all the possibilities opening up for them. Highlights include earrings in one or both ears depending on your 'orientation' (I'm told), jewellery or bling is very popular, the gold-ier and gaudier the better, and hair is either blonde spikes or shaved bald.

Gwen’s outdoor soccer team finished their season with a loss. Next week, she’ll have indoor practice at this time so the driving stays much the same, except I miss out on the traffic jams across the top of the city, at midnight, after away games.

Thursday 27:

Alys called me at work to tell me my payroll deposit was wrong; they only paid me for two days. I tried to calm her, assuring her it was just a glitch in the system and would be corrected next week but she insisted I go straight to Payroll and sort it out. I demurred until she said she’d be in on the next train. I hurried to Payroll and found that when they removed my ‘step up’ pay for being the Acting Director, they inadvertently terminated me. It’s quite worrying, particularly at a time like this when the tiles aren’t paid for and the Restructuring Team is still off-site, at a golf and country club resort, working on its lists of employees and jobs.

The other day President Bush forgot to thank Canada in a speech listing all those who had helped after the WTC tragedy. The newspapers are full of patriotic complaint. Bush says he thinks of Canada as a ‘brother’ and family; therefore, thanks aren’t necessary. What a funny family he must live in. I suspect, like many Americans, he wasn’t aware Canada was a separate country.

Grey Cup day: Canada’s equivalent of the Superbowl or the F.A. Cup is today. When Earl Grey, the then Governor-General (not the bergamot-scented tea), gave this trophy to the local Rugby league, he can’t have imagined the game would have degenerated into a battle of shrimps, which is what North American football players remind me of with their huge helmet and shoulder padding. And like shrimps, when you remove the hard outer shell what’s left is hardly worth having. Most homes in Canada on this day are given over to TV, beer and vast quantities of junk snacks. The Lakeladys maintain a dignified observance of the ritual by missing out the unessential elements, like TV, beer, and junk snacks.

We bought a cat rug for Silky to use when she lies on my lap; that way her claws won’t dig into my flesh when she leaps off. Tonight was the first opportunity to use it and Silky refused to even consider sleeping on it so, when Gwen called for a ride home, I got scratched again. Alys says I should be firmer with Silky -- she’s only a cat. Which is like saying I should be firmer with Alys, she’s only a woman.

Lance has volunteered to train Silky to use her rug and, reluctantly, we’ve agreed. It will end in tears.

Friday 28:

Alys, sensing that I’m not happy with the uncertainty at work, insisted I go and talk to Mr. Ogilvie and get some straight answers. I’ve decided I must put on a braver face at home; the additional stress of Alys’s encouragement may be too much for my constitution. What Alys doesn’t seem to realise is we remember the great heroes of old because they did what no other man was willing or likely to do; that’s why we call them heroes. Most of us value a quiet, uneventful life. And those that don’t value a quiet life should be identified in babyhood and given cranial electric shock treatment till they do.

Lance told us, at the supper table, he isn’t happy with the uncertainty at school. He’s concerned the Principal doesn’t like him and will fail him without cause. Alys says she’ll be at the school Monday to straighten things out with that Principal. I fear Lance has a lot to learn when it comes to school, mothers, and female psychology in general.

The ‘Mars and Venus’ author was right about men and women inhabiting different spaces -- but they’re both on this planet. Given the choice, men would be hunting, fishing and killing each other in the Temperate Zone, while women would be murdering each other for chocolate in the Tropics. Arthur Lakelady would be quietly reading a book in Iceland.

Yesterday, the US provided its evidence that Bin Laden was to blame for the WTC atrocity. As this evidence, wholly circumstantial, comes from two agencies, the FBI and CIA, who blamed the Oklahoma bombing a few years back on Bin Laden right up to the day Timothy McVeigh’s brother turned him in, I can’t see many people being impressed.

Obviously, the Taliban were impressed (they can’t be familiar with the FBI and CIA’s recent record) because they have asked Bin Laden to leave Afghanistan.

Took Lance to soccer practice, leaving Alys to help Gwen with her homework. They weren’t speaking to each other when Lance and I got home. Alys says next time, she’s going to take Lance to soccer practice -- and I can do the hard work for a change! I’m rightly incensed at this remark for it was Alys who sent me off with Lance because ‘she didn’t want to sit around in a cold gym for hours doing nothing’. There’ll be no spoon-hugging in bed tonight.

Weight: down 1 lb. Good.

Saturday 29:

Dad had his operation and is recovering. His stomach problem disappeared just before the tests and the tests showed nothing. I congratulated him on his good health -- unwisely, as it turned out. His stomach is giving him problems again and so is his back. Gawain is ‘as well as can be expected’ for a man of 33 who has watched TV from a horizontal position every free minute of his life. When Gawain goes, he should donate his brain to science or the television museum.

I’m very embarrassed at our North American media; they are all talking and behaving in what they consider to be brave, fierce voices, only they sound really frightened. I know the WTC event was horrific but we are allowing a bunch of Muslim madmen to help our own governments repress us back to the Dark Ages. The proper answer to intolerance is more tolerance, to fear is fearlessness, and to threats of oppression is more freedom. We’re building fortresses, 500 years after castles became death-traps to those inside. I thought I’d write to an editor and make my feelings known, however, when this is published, as I’m sure it will be someday, my protest will be heard.

Last week, Renee bought airline tickets for my upcoming training course in the USA, where we all go now to learn how to be good subjects of the American Empire. I feel a bit sick at the thought of getting into a plane but intend to set a good example by not being sick, or drunk, during the flight. Still, I can’t help wishing my own nerve wasn’t being tested so soon after the WTC event. Over the supper table, I shared my concern, in a ‘modern man’ kind of way with my family, hoping (foolishly) for some cheering words that showed they cared about my safety. Lance pointed out that, statistically, he was far more at risk than I will be because every day he will be going to school and, therefore, crossing the main road at the end of Merlin Crescent. Alys agreed with him and said she’ll walk him to the corner from now on. Lance, realising his mistake, tried to wriggle out of it but Alys was adamant (it’s practically her middle name) and it serves the little so-and-so right! Gwen wanted to know if my life insurance money would be enough to buy her a car?

Message on our answering machine says the Tile Shoppe can’t get enough border tiles to do the kitchen. Can we come in and pick some different ones, please? So we do. It’s funny how easy it is to pick tiles now. We’ve rejected the border tiles we chose today a dozen times, every time the saleslady pressed them on us in fact. This time, and considering the different tiles we’re trying to match to now, they look fine. Do tile people know their job so well they just stop their customers choosing badly?

Sunday 30:

Alys asked me to drop off our dry-cleaning at the store, which I did only to get a long lecture from the woman behind the counter that went something like this:

The shop assistant, disdainfully picking up a pair of my Silky-furred trousers, “Is this animal fur?”

Me, embarrassed because of the other six customers who were contemptuously looking at my furry pants, “Y-yes. We have a cat.”

The shop assistant, “Well, in future, brush it off before you come here. I don’t have time for this on a Sunday. It’s our busy day.”

I mumbled a brief apology and fled, vowing never to go there again. I don’t often go into stores, Alys is much better at these things than I am, but this is the first time anything like this has happened.

On my return, I told the family of this peculiar incident, in a ‘modern man’ kind of way, and Lance said it was nothing to the way his Math teacher talks to him. Apparently, the woman is a cross between Cruella DeVille and Margaret Thatcher. Alys is going to speak to her tomorrow, right after her meeting with the Principal. I hope Alys hasn’t bitten off more than she can chew, two monsters of depravity in one day is a tall order even for a gentle lady from the Middle Ages like Alys. Gwen says I’m too soft; I should have given the dry cleaning lady a stern lecture on customer relations. I wonder if Gwen could take the laundry next time?

Later, I took my car to the service place I had it booked it into, intending to leave it overnight, as I always do so they can work on it first thing in the morning. Only this time the building was empty. I wandered round the outside peering in the windows and saw no sign of life. Unwilling to leave my trusty old wagon in an abandoned lot, I brought it home and called the garage. It’s too late for anyone to be there on a Sunday, of course, but the answering machine is still in service and sounds positively welcoming. I wasn't convinced and kept my car at home.

Lance decided today was the day for Silky to learn to use her rug, which he tried to do using force when she wouldn’t accept bribes. After he had got badly scratched, he decided Silky should be put down and took some convincing otherwise. Silky felt Lance should be put down and it took me most of the evening to convince her otherwise too.

October 2001:

War, Halloween and

other offences against mankind.

Monday 1:

On the morning GO train, I told Gerry my theory that tile shop assistants know their job so well they don’t let customers buy poor choices. He snorted and said, “Extreme Renovator doesn’t recommend tiles because there’s actually only one pattern of tile and border in the whole world. All the ones you see in the stores are just samples to bring in gullible fools.” He stopped short of saying ‘like you’ but I could tell that’s what he was thinking. Fortunately, I know his snide remark can’t be true because I’ve seen houses with different tiles. Then, I thought, maybe they just make one tile and border per year and that’s why it looks like there’s more than one variety. Arrive at work very depressed.

Another announcement at work today; this one says the reorganisation won’t be done till ‘early in the first quarter of 2002.’ I’m relieved, not because this extra time for ‘input to the restructuring team’ will help me (my section has no friends, so more input means less chance for us at the end) but because I will, at least, be employed until Christmas. I expect Public Relations advised that laying people off before the holidays is bad PR. Called Alys and told her the good news. Even the people gossiping in the hallways sounded more cheerful.

The garage I’ve been using for years is no more; it seems I was their only customer. I booked the car into a different one. What did everyone know about the old garage that I didn’t?

Alys had a successful day at school facing down the twin dragons. They weren’t aware their behaviour had led Lance to suicidal manic depression and are extremely sorry if anything they’ve said (such as ‘where is your homework?’ or ‘shouldn’t you be in class?’) has upset Lance. They will do better in future. Lance didn’t seem as pleased with this news as you might have expected. Gwen said Lance should just get to class on time and do his homework on time, like she does, and he wouldn’t feel so persecuted. This led to a brief altercation and Lance storming out of the dining room. No doubt Mephisto III has a new villain called Gwen to be maimed and killed.

Weight: + 2lbs? And I starved myself all weekend so this wouldn’t happen!

Tuesday 2:

I’ve finally decided on a topic for my next speech, Stress in the Workplace. Gerry says Extreme Orator recommends an ‘in-your-face’ approach to public speaking -- timidity and responsibility are out. They advise violently emoting passion, storming, ranting, raging, and sweating to win over your audience. Hitler and Mussolini should be your role models. Now I know where our new crop of VPs learned their oratorical skills because I’ve watched them all have a two-year-old’s temper tantrum on stage in the past few weeks. One was so unaware of the impression he created it made us all laugh -- after we were out of his sight. He was taking questions from the floor when a seemingly harmless question, like one a party stalwart asks his own Prime Minister to fill up time and stop the Opposition asking difficult questions, made him erupt like a blocked toilet. He paced back and forth, ranting, red in the face, and thumping the table with his fist before eventually calming down. Then he said, “I get very passionate about that. Now, are there any more questions?” Unsurprisingly, there weren’t.

Gwen and Lance are friends again. They had to be because Lance wanted help with his math homework and Gwen’s the only person in the house who can do this new math. Alys and I got left behind in grade six. Lance is also friends with Silky again but I notice Silky hides under the coffee table when Lance comes into the room. She doesn’t have Lance's forgiving nature.

Wednesday 3:

At work, normality is returning as people with nothing new to talk about go back to their desks from the water coolers and smoking rooms. We’re busier too, my phone rang today, I received nine e-mails, and one of my staff, who hasn’t done a stroke of work in months, asked for some clerical assistance.

Our doctor called to say she’d received the hospital’s x-ray results of Lance’s broken finger and could we come to see her tomorrow?

Gwen’s soccer team had its first indoor practice tonight and I drove her there because she’s still in the ‘can’t drive alone after dark’ stage of her driving licence. Tonight, for some reason, I realised I shall miss driving her to games and practice when she moves on, even though it cuts into my diary time. It’s what used to be called ‘quality time’ way back in the Eighties, when we started losing the right to have a life outside of work. (Now that the government has discovered we don’t mind being economic serfs, they are taking away our right to a pensionable life after work too.)

Alys helped Lance with his homework so naturally they weren’t speaking when I got home. And later, the Alys character in Mephisto had a bad night too.

Thursday 4:

Yesterday Canada agreed the US evidence for Bin Laden’s guilt was conclusive. Obviously, they have short memories in Ottawa as well. The Taliban have offered talks with the US government to arrange handing over Bin Laden. America’s President Bush is outraged, naturally. His daddy had a successful war (against America’s old ally Saddam Hussein) and he wants one too.

Gerry wasn’t on the train tonight so I had time to look about me and listen in on my neighbours’ conversations. I shared the GO train’s four-seat passenger arrangement with two elderly men and a sharp young salesman type, still wearing his sunglasses. They got into conversation and, from Toronto till the stop before mine, the two old codgers answered the young man’s questions, telling him about their respective farms, their orchards, their fishing boat, and their day out in the big city without their wives. The young salesman, in return, patronisingly boasted of his fast life in the city moving goods and winning extra commissions. The old men nodded and wished him luck in the future as he got off. Then they settled back to discuss their CPUs, their modems, their gigabytes and their RAMs, ROMs, pixels and caches, servers, LANs, and a host of other bewildering electronic wizardry that I, who use these things every day, couldn’t follow. When I got off the train I, still couldn’t tell which was the ‘story’ and which the truth. And what did the ‘fishing boat’ look like?

Took Lance to the doctor who pronounced his ring finger broken. Lance and I said, “No, it’s the pinkie.” The doctor showed us the letter from the hospital confirming it was the ring finger and we showed her his finger confirming it was the pinkie. In the end, she compromised by sending us to have it x-rayed at the local strip plaza and replacing the sticky tape with a hi-tech metal splint because taping it like the hospital did would have it set wrong. With tremendous self-control, I forbore mentioning it was she who sent us to the hospital in the first place because, she said, they would be the best people to set it properly.

Alys and Gwen stayed home while I was on this mission of mercy, Gwen to study and Alys to tinker with the kitchen decorating while the kitchen is out of commission. When I returned, I found Alys wants to move the breakfast bar because it’s in the way. As this would require also moving the cupboards underneath and reworking the countertop around the sinks, I said no quite forcefully. Alys left to stick pins in an Arthur doll I’m convinced she has hidden and Gwen said she was proud of me. She won’t feel that way when her husband, sometime down the road, says no to one of her schemes.

Friday 5:

Britain has laid out its evidence concerning Bin Laden but it amounts to little more than Bin Laden has said in the past that he hates the USA. Pakistan has done a much better deal. In return for having its debts written off, huge amounts of aid shipped in, and the lifting of international sanctions against the country, they have agreed the US evidence is strong enough to indict Bin Laden for multiple acts of terrorism. So it is -- but probably not strong enough to convict him. Any competent US lawyer could, and would, win this case. As the British know, prosecuting terrorists successfully is difficult. Particularly when the terrorists, such as the Irish Republican Army, have the backing of people in a large power like the USA.

I dropped my car at my ‘new’ regular garage, asking them to call and let me know what a 150,000 km service, four new tires, and replacing a piece of plastic trim that was hanging from the body, would cost. By lunchtime, they hadn’t called so I called them. The woman who answered sounded very flustered and said she’d phone me right back after she’d spoken to the technician. An hour later, I called again and got a different woman, who transferred me to a man in Service, who gave me a price that took my breath away. They did at least promise to call when the car was ready.

Before leaving the office, when they hadn't called, I called the garage again to confirm my car will be ready. Like last time, I was once again put through to Service but this time, it just rang and rang. After a time, a woman picked up the phone and asked who I was waiting for. I said Service, without adding any sarcastic remarks. She said, “Oh,” and put me back on hold. Another eon passed before another woman picked up the phone and asked who I was waiting for. I replied Service and she put me on hold again. Then, as my train was undoubtedly rolling out of the station without me, a man picked up the phone and asked who I was waiting for. I said, thinking I had reached the Holy Grail, I was Arthur Lakelady and I was calling to see if my car was ready. He said there was no Arthur Lakelady there and he was just leaving to make a delivery. I had to call back and ask for Darla. I didn’t try to explain about the Arthur Lakelady business, I just called back and asked for Darla, after that I was put on hold. There are only two kinds of people at garages, those who are not Darla and those who are -- but are too fricking busy to answer phones. Eventually, as my back up train left the station without me, a woman answered the phone and asked who I was waiting for. I said, Darla. She said, “Oh,” and put me back on hold. I was just deciding to hang up and catch the next train when another woman answered and we went through the usual routine. This time, she didn’t put me on hold, even though she wasn’t Darla (who is?) she asked what I wanted. I told her and she said, “Yes, it’s ready and don’t forget we close at six on Fridays. If you don’t get it tonight, you’ll have to wait until Monday.” A fact I had forgotten amid the pleasure of whiling away my time listening to their customer service music.

Why are late trains slow trains? Don’t people who work late want to get home quickly? I pondered these questions on the journey home, amid weary account executives, corporate lawyers, and other middle-class parasites. On balance, viewing their dark-ringed eyes, swelling paunches and sagging jowls, I feel they would be better off working in a coalmine rather than in the billion cubicles of downtown Toronto.

I made it to the garage with a minute to spare and I could tell the Cashier didn’t want to serve me but I remained firm and got the car back. I think Gwen may have a point concerning dealing with some people and maybe there’s more of Gwen in me than I have previously imagined.

Alys, Gwen, and Lance weren’t so easy to deal with when I got home, however. I’d forgotten we were going out to dinner and they were hungrily waiting at home for their chauffeur. Considering I hadn’t eaten either, I thought their comments most inappropriate but I didn’t say so -- because I couldn’t get a word in edgeways.

Weight: minus 2 lbs. Better.

Saturday 6:

Called dad. The tests on his stomach were fine and his conjunctivitis is completely cured. This is good news, finally. Except his varicose veins are playing up and he can hardly walk. Gawain is also still unable to get about because of his discs. My two sickly relatives have been assigned a public health nurse and a cleaning lady on the National Health Service. As I’m disgustingly healthy at present, I listen in guilty silence. I know that the least a really loving son and brother could do is to fly over and make them a nice cup of tea. I wonder why Galahad is never mentioned? Decided to call and ask him.

Told dad our recent experiences with the Ontario health system and he assured me Lance is getting superlative treatment. In Britain, they’d have amputated his leg by now.

With Gwen at work all day, Alys had to go shopping on her own. I suggested she call friends but she said ‘if you can’t be bothered to accompany your own wife, I can’t hope for more charity from others.’ I remained unmoved by this plea because I had to catch up on this diary.

Sunday 7:

I asked Gwen to go for the dry-cleaning but Alys ordered me stop being a wuss and go for it myself. This time I’m to remind the old biddy at the store that the customer is the boss and I’m the customer. Alys says I’m a man and I’m not to be afraid of elderly shop girls. She laid heavy emphasis on ‘girls’, which was supposed to make me feel braver but didn’t because I was never good with girls. I returned to the store, carrying this week’s heavy load of cleaning on my heart (metaphorically), with the following results:

Shop assistant, grimly scenting blood, “Have those shirts button-down collars?”

Me, in a small voice, “Yes.”

She (-Wolf), “You’ll have to undo them yourself. I don’t have time for that on a Sunday. It’s our busy day -- as I think I already told you.”

I don’t care what Alys says. I’m not going back to that store again even for the ‘half-price Sunday’ discount. She wouldn’t talk to Alys that way.

I called Galahad and asked him about dad. He says he’s tired of listening to the old bugger’s complaints and I should stop encouraging Dad and Gawain to feel sorry for themselves. He’ll call me if there’s ever anything seriously wrong with either of them. I rang off. I’m tempted to do as he says.

Monday 8: War

British and American submarines fired Tomahawk missiles into Afghanistan overnight so the attack on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda has begun. In response, Bin Laden has released a videotape praising God for the WTC attack. Good old God, always there when you need him. I’ve noticed that, down the centuries, whenever someone has wanted to do something truly moronic or just plain evil they always claim God as their inspiration. I think it’s time He spoke out in his own defence and stopped using humans as interpreters. Or hasn’t He, She, or It noticed that humans always interpret the Word to suit themselves?

Needless to say, normality is out of the window again as everyone returns to the water coolers to discuss recent events. Another member of my staff has asked for clerical assistance, claiming the only way he can catch up the time lost by the past weeks’ alarms and excursions is for me to get him an assistant.

Lance’s doctor called. They have the x-rays. Lance’s finger is still broken and he is on no account to play sports for another week. We made a follow-up appointment for next Wednesday.

Gwen has a boyfriend, someone from work. I don’t see how she has time for school, work, and a boyfriend; however, I didn’t say so because she would shout at me. Love is supposed to make girls go all gooey-eyed and mushy. If that’s true, I can safely affirm Gwen is not in love. I think the stress of juggling such a schedule is making her cranky; well, that and Lance singing ‘first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes sitting in the baby carriage’ all evening.

Weight: plus 2 lbs. Worse… and better because this weekend I didn’t starve myself, and the gain is no larger than last weekend when I did.

Tuesday 9:

We have a new system at work, brought by the Americans when they took over, for tracking problems and getting them fixed. That sounds so sensible it has to be a good idea -- and it is. But it’s how you implement things that make the difference. Our system works something like this:

Someone who doesn’t know anything presses a wrong button, or finds a switch in what they think is the wrong position, or watches someone do something they don’t understand and they report their lack of knowledge and understanding on an Adverse Condition Report or ACR. Their boss, who hasn’t seen the problem, assigns this ACR to a subject aware person, or SAP. The SAP investigates and writes a proposed action plan or PAP. The PAP is presented by the SAP to the management and executive review directorate, or MERD, who, not knowing the problem or being subject aware themselves, and like the Rotweillers they’re all trained to be, rip the PAP apart and demand more investigation and more corrective actions. The SAP dutifully rewrites the PAP, removing all his or her suggested improvements and incorporating all the MERD’s special extras, and re-presents the PAP to the MERD. Provided the composition of the MERD hasn’t significantly altered (but it usually has) the PAP is approved and becomes a correcting requirements action plan or CRAP. The actions go into the ACR system and are assigned by the deficiency oversight and leadership team, or DOLT. Thus, any person, initiator and MERD, who is willing to publicly proclaim their own ignorance, can actively use our management system to hijack workers of other people’s departments into working on their wish list.

I’ve taken a long time to explain this because today, to my despair, I’ve been nominated as an SAP. I have to investigate why someone at one of our plants blew up a piece of very expensive machinery while following a procedure we issued a week ago. Actually, it’s the only new procedure we’ve been able to get issued since our formation at the last re-organisation, four years ago. I’ve arranged to meet the initiator of the ACR next week after he comes back from sick leave. Before then I’ve got to be trained on Root Cause Analysis (RCA).

Lance’s soccer team had an extra indoor practice tonight and I had the pleasure of taking him there, leaving Alys with Gwen. I don’t know what they did but it didn’t go well.

Wednesday 10:

Canada joined in the war yesterday. We’re sending our forces to Afghanistan just as soon as the Americans can ship them there and as soon we know what they can do to help the Americans. The papers are a bit patriotically offended at this, suggesting our boys should go on their own and do their own thing. The PM replied, diplomatically, that there are few countries that can act unilaterally, the USA (of course), the UK (to a lesser extent), and France (to a still lesser extent) and Canada isn’t one of them. No one asked why Canada isn’t (because the answer is we would have to spend a lot more money on defence)? They would have asked if they’d been on the RCA training course with me.

Started RCA training and learned to dig deep for failures. This is a wonderful tool that was obviously dreamed up by a rabid trade unionist. No matter what happens, the fault always lies with management. The final answer is always that the worker didn’t get properly trained, or have a proper safety culture, or supervision, or have the right tools, procedures, briefings, etc. This system assumes that fully trained and experienced workers are simply robots whose every action comes from a superior being called ‘the boss’. It’s much the same assumption that’s made about women under the law, only then the superior being is called ‘a man’. Workers apparently do nothing but blindly follow orders and women are either being directed by a man, duped by a man or are reacting against the wickedness of a man; somehow, despite being human, these two groups are never actually personally wrong.

Occasionally, the result comes out that management didn’t have proper training, or the right culture, etc. but even then it’s their fault for not knowing what was the right training or culture and correcting it. What I don’t understand is, and maybe it comes out on Day 2, if everything is management’s fault and they follow their boss’s orders, why isn’t everything the CEO’s fault and why don’t we just fire him or her whenever there’s a mistake? They do in Parliament when some assistant to a junior clerk leaves a top-secret folder on a bus and the appropriate Cabinet Minister resigns. RCA says we should do the same -- even though it’s clearly stupid.

This deep analysis of problems fits in well with the modern world because it says someone else is always to blame, particularly if they’re rich. Our modern world doesn’t so much tell people not to do bad things as tell them why they have the right to continue doing bad things. We give people a licence to be mischievous or even downright evil.

Took Gwen to soccer practice and, during the drive, she told me Lance is playing road hockey after school and if I want his finger to heal I should be firm and stop him. Gwen always seems to be pushing me into fights with people; I’ll be glad when she gets the next stage of her licence and can drive herself. It isn’t that I disagree with her, it’s just she’s a little intimidating. After all, this is a girl who, at the age of ten, while refereeing a children’s soccer game, stared down a soccer hooligan dad that was being obnoxious from the sidelines.

Later, I spoke to Lance and urged him to be more careful. I think that will do the trick. Talking to him as one mature, reasonable adult to another is much the best policy, whatever Gwen thinks.

Thursday 11:

Canada’s Federal government has announced we will have ID cards for immigrants from now on. I can’t see that standing up in a court once the present hysteria has died away.

RCA training today consisted of role-playing. We investigated a real accident that happened at work a year or so ago and presented the fruits of our thinking to the trainer, or would have done if we could have agreed on any one of the dozen root causes we found between us. I noticed the management part of the group thought the injured worker was an idiot who deserved what he got and the workers thought he was the victim of poor management. I kept out of this because I could tell from the course materials that management was to blame and I didn’t want to be on the losing side. The trainer also decided not to become involved and said we’d all done well and the diversity of opinions showed how much we’d learned and how difficult it was sometimes to get to the root of problems arising from systemic failures of processes. He handed out the actual root cause found by the actual real-life team and we found that we’d been too conservative. They’d found lots more root causes than we did.

I’m not sure I learned anything on this course but the experience will help when I meet the injured worker I’m root causing with next week. One thing I’ve learned from dealing with Gwen and Lance’s school, and from training I’ve been on, is that education is different today. When I went to school you learned this was this, that was that, and you were expected to remember them both for the exams. Now any answer is a good answer. Telling a pupil today they are wrong will only end in tears, and the teacher will get six-of-the-best to make sure they don’t do it again.

Lance played volleyball in gym class today and had a great time till he hit the ball with his finger. The splint is bent too. I reminded him of the doctor’s advice and he said volleyball isn’t a sport and anyway it was only practice, not a game, so it doesn’t count. I think I’ve sown the seeds, however, and he’ll be more sensible now -- and all without fighting. Gwen has a lot to learn about managing people.

Friday 12:

Now that I’m fully trained on RCA, I looked at the information I’d been given on my ACR with a new perspective and… it looked exactly the same. I’ll wait till I meet the machine operator before I do anymore. It occurs to me that if I’m to do this PAP as well as my regular work I need an assistant. Mr. Ogilvie won’t like it but I think it’s vital I, we, have some help.

Lance’s indoor soccer team had practice, not a game so it doesn’t count, and Lance had a great time till he fell on his finger. Gwen glared at me when we came home with Lance holding his swollen finger and whimpering about parents who force their kids to practice when they’re injured. She took Lance away so they could plot terrible revenge on their tyrannical, ruthless dad. The coach is on my side; he says kids need to learn to play through pain. It’s funny how people in the Western world insist on laws preventing workplace injuries for themselves but expect to see their favourite sports stars playing through the pain and maiming themselves for life.

Went to gym. Weight: minus 1 lb. Good.

Saturday 13:

Packages containing Anthrax spores have been circulated in the US mail system and a postal worker has died. There’s talk about it being Bin Laden but that’s daft. This is an amateurish home-grown nutcase, not an international celebrity terrorist nutcase though I’ve no doubt Bin Laden will claim responsibility and the FBI and CIA will back him up with proof. Those folks are in cahoots to divert the American taxpayer’s money for worthless purposes. Mr. Bin Laden hopes to bring down the USA slowly but surely; the other two, like most people on the public payroll, are making hay while the sun shines, which will eventually bring down the USA -- just slower than Bin Laden wanted.

Called dad. His veins are less painful today but he’s been laid up all week. Gawain has done nothing to help, Dad says. Gawain says that’s because he’s sicker than Dad is; his discs were worse than ever. I unwisely told Gawain he should get out and exercise more like I’m doing. Gawain says he’s in good shape for a man of his age. It’s just his discs that aren’t and exercise would make that worse -- then he hung up.

Lance played road hockey at his friend’s house, not an officially sanctioned game so it doesn’t count, and had a great time till he fell on his finger. Fortunately, he’d removed the splint and it didn’t get damaged -- or we’d be out another $8. Lance can be thoughtful that way. Fortunately, Gwen was out when Lance came home so she wasn’t able to scold me for my lack of parental discipline. Alys made up for Gwen’s absence by scolding Lance for playing and me for letting him play, though I knew nothing about it.

Sunday 14:

Our Federal government has moved with commendable speed to punish Canadians for international terrorism. They’ve announced a bill allowing the police and spy agencies powers to do as they please with us wicked citizens. Opposition is limited to a few crackpot civil libertarians whom nobody has ever listened to and won’t now.

Alys kindly offered to accompany me to the dry-cleaners this week when I said I didn’t want to go. Then we discussed my reluctance and she called me a baby!! Foolishly I let this persuade me to go once again on my own to meet the She-Wolf of Whitebay. Our conversation at the store went something like this:

She-Wolf, sneering, “Those shirts have the sleeves rolled up.”

Me, boldly going where no man has gone before, “But the collars are unbuttoned.”

She-Wolf, “There’s only one collar to a shirt, there are two sleeves. Do you think I’ve nothing better to do here but get your laundry ready for cleaning? This is our busy day, you know.”

I unrolled the sleeves and slunk away. Even if Alys kills me, I am NOT coming back to this store. I’ll find another one and pay the difference from my allowance. Missing lunch one workday won’t do me any harm. It may even help me lose weight.

I noticed Lance didn’t jump in with an example of how badly the world treats him so I think he’s learned from his previous experiences with Alys. Those people who say pain isn’t a good teacher should learn from this evidence.

Monday 15:

President Bush has rebuffed the Taliban’s offer to negotiate and says they must hand over Bin Laden or else they’ll be attacked. Shades of 1914 when the Austrians demanded that Serbia hands over the murderer of Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand, thus beginning WW1. The only thing that will save us, this time, is the ugly little guy has no big ugly friends.

On my journey home, I pondered the idea of approaching Mr. Ogilvie with my plan to increase my section’s productivity by hiring a clerical assistant. I asked Gerry’s opinion and he said my section is a bunch of lazy jerks who should all be fired. Gerry and I have never agreed on the need for administrative procedures. Fortunately, I don’t think Gerry will ever get into a position of power and be a threat.

Lance did basketball in gym today but it was only practice so it didn’t hurt his finger. It also didn’t bend the splint because he took it off to save it and, as he didn’t hurt his finger, he didn’t learn anything. Gwen was at work so I didn’t hear about my lax discipline tonight, no doubt I will tomorrow when she finds out.

I told Alys about hiring an assistant and she thinks it will be a good idea. She added, “You should hire a woman, from what you’ve told me having one worker in your group can only help.” I’m puzzled by her comment because I thought I’d always been fair to my staff in our discussions.

Tuesday 16:

I met the initiator of the ACR and asked him to describe the incident and the events leading up to it. I didn’t tell him who I was but he’d read it on the front cover of the procedure and his manner was very unpleasant; he claimed I almost killed him. I assured him his boss signed off on the document so I knew it was right, at which point he had hysterics, raging, storming, and foaming at the mouth. Presuming it was delayed shock from his near-fatal accident; I got the company nurse to medicate him. When I returned in the afternoon, he was calmer. The nurse said I wasn’t to upset him again so I kept off the subject of his boss.

His description of events, shorn of the colourful industrial language he used, suggests the procedure may not have covered all possible circumstances. This is very disappointing because this one has been three years in preparation and had 27 revisions before issue. I asked him how they have been operating the machine till now? He said till ‘that day’ they were using the Owner’s Manual! Well, no wonder they had an accident. Changing procedures, like these people did, without a transition plan and a phased approach is very dangerous; it’s like jumping between rail cars on trains moving in opposite directions.

I don’t know how they hadn't had an accident before now because I remember looking at the Owner’s Manual when we started; I’m sure it read well in the original Japanese but no one over here could have understood it. That’s why we didn’t use it when we wrote our procedure.

I had the initiator describe the events and tell me why the procedure was no good. I’m not going to ignore his views, after all, he is the eyewitness, and hopefully, will become a two-eyed witness again when the bandages are removed. However, my procedure on how to do root cause analysis says I’ve got to look further than the superficial reasons for the failure and dig deeper into the underlying reasons.

RCA is a useful tool for helping one be objective. Why, for instance, wasn’t the operator’s supervisor overseeing this first use of a new procedure? There has been a serious failure of management here. The operator, with his twenty-year’s experience in machine tools and five on this particular machine, probably would have welcomed some oversight while using a new procedure for the first time. And why didn’t he ask his supervisor for support? Clearly he was afraid of being thought inadequate and this points to a poor safety culture in this shop. The manager is probably one of those young people who, afraid for their own skins, behave like old-fashioned tyrants and browbeat their staff to improve production at the expense of safety.

I had interviewed the manager earlier, while the operator was resting in the nurse’s station. He seemed a nice young man but that was probably just an act put on for my benefit. Now I think back on the interview, he seemed very uneasy and nervous. A guilty conscience there, I note, for my report. Everything I hear and see convinces me that the shop is so poorly run it’s a miracle they haven’t had a dozen such accidents before. Their safety record, the best in the corporation their figures claim, is either good luck or deliberate under-reporting. I’ll suggest an auditor review their statistics as well. I can’t completely exonerate the reviewers of the procedure (of which the shop manager was one), however, because it does need tweaking. I noticed two spelling errors (pages 71 and 245) and a syntax fault on page 193.

For my Public Speaking presentation, I decided against using the Extreme Orator methodology, concentrating instead on what I’ve learned from the course, Public Speaking not Root Cause (I’ve already said how much I learned from that). I did, however, find that experimenting (at home in front of the bathroom mirror) with the ‘in-your-face’ approach helped me to do the things I already do more confidently so I think there may be something in it. I won’t tell Gerry; it will only make him more conceited.

My speech on Stress in the Workplace, with special emphasis on reorganisations and downsizing, was very well received and I’m beginning to feel I don’t need this course because my public speaking is already good, apparently. Maybe, all along, it’s been my lack of confidence holding me back. When I make a speech I sound unsure even when I know what I’m talking about; at least, that’s what I’ve thought until tonight where I got rapturous applause. I’ll give the course another couple of months and then quit.

I told my loving, supportive family of my successful presentation when I got home and they showered me with praise -- oh, no, that was just my daydream driving home. They were too busy watching a TV program called Temptation Island to notice I was home. That show is very vulgar; I’m disappointed in my family for watching it.

Wednesday 17:

I’ve written my PAP recommending an implementation plan for all new procedures and incorporating a transition phase from the old way of doing things to the new. I’ve also, cleverly, incorporated a lot of actions I know the MERD would have asked for if I hadn’t included them. This way there's a chance I’ll get my actions done, at the expense of everyone doing a few extra jobs they would have ended up doing anyway because the MERD would have tacked them on to some PAP sometime. Luckily, I’m too late for this week’s MERD meeting so I’ve got two weeks to tweak the plan as I’m in the USA next week.

Lance and I visited his doctor. His finger has healed and it’s fine, thanks to the quick work of our local GP and the magical metal splint that works without actually being on a finger.

Talked to Gwen about University next year on the way to soccer practice. I’m glad we have this time together without the rest of the family wanting their say. I can really listen to her and what she’s trying to tell me. She wants to go to University in Britain or Australia or failing that, British Columbia or Newfoundland. It’s great at that age, when the world is yours to command. In the end she’ll go to Toronto the same as everyone else in this neighbourhood but just now she’s dreaming.

I told Alys about Gwen’s travel dreams. “She’ll go where we can keep an eye on her and like it,” Alys said and went off to browbeat Gwen into submission, despite my urging her not to. Alys doesn’t understand the softly, softly approach any more than Gwen does. I turned the radio up while I wrote my diary so I couldn’t hear them discussing Gwen’s future.

Thursday 18:

Tweaked the PAP some more. Today’s MERD identified a whole lot more actions senior management want to have done so I incorporated them too. When I present my PAP, they’ll say, “Take those actions out because someone else is doing them.” That will leave my actions to be carried out -- as Baldrick, Blackadder’s sidekick on the TV show, would say, “a cunning plan.”

At today’s MERD I was forcibly reminded, by one of those idiots who thinks everything gobbledegook is gospel, of another American innovation to our glorious subsidiary company's madness -- the Phonetic Alphabet. This, like so many of their ‘innovations’, comes straight from the military and must, therefore, be efficient. Over a field radio during a battle I’m prepared to accept the phonetic alphabet may be a useful aid, over a table face-to-face in a quiet meeting room, it’s asinine.

Alys and Gwen are speaking again tonight (they weren’t on good terms at breakfast) because they’ve fallen out with Lance who offended them by saying something terrible about women; after last nights discussions he suggested they weren’t all ‘sugar and spice and all things nice’. Lance doesn’t understand the concept of a ‘polite fiction’.

Friday 19:

Tweaked the PAP again after overhearing a conversation between Mr. Ogilvie and his boss, Mr. Bustard. I now have 18 actions in the plan, 15 of which are things the MERD has told others to do.

All my staff told me today they’ll need extra help if I’m going to be doing PAPs and can’t support them on their deliverables. I began to think that maybe I should prepare, if only in my own mind, a justification for another member of staff, softening Mr. Ogilvie up in stages, so I can get some work accomplished before the year is gone.

Alys took Lance to soccer practice, leaving me to help Gwen with her homework, which I did by keeping out of her way. She had finished by the time Alys and Lance returned, as I knew she would, so Alys didn’t learn the truth and we had a pleasant evening until bedtime.

Weight: minus 1 lb. Better.

Saturday 20:

After the constant bombing from their respective air forces, American Rangers and British SAS soldiers are inside Afghanistan.

Called Dad. He’s not well, his varicose veins are very painful and he’s resting on the couch watching TV. He had to get up to take my call so was grumpy. Gawain isn’t well either, something he ate didn’t agree with him and he didn’t want to speak to me, Dad said, which means he hasn’t forgiven my comment last week about exercising.

I told Dad that Lance’s finger was healed and he said, “Lucky he broke it in Canada. Over here he’d still be waiting to see a doctor and when he did, the bugger wouldn’t know what to do.” Apparently, Dad’s doctor didn’t advise an operation on those varicose veins, which was Dad’s diagnosis.

Lance had a friend over to play road hockey, so he said. What they actually played all day was video games. Gwen was at work, and then went out with the people from work in the evening, so Alys and I had some quality time together. It’s such a long time since we had time together we didn’t know what to do and just wasted it cleaning the house.

Sunday 21:

Back to the dry-cleaners. Today’s witty repartee went as follows:

She-Wolf, “These shirts aren’t cotton.”

Me, “I didn’t say they were.”

She-Wolf, “What about these pants, this jacket? Are they linen or man-made?” She then proceeded to read out loudly, in excruciating detail, the labels of all my cleaning. For some reason I couldn’t stop being embarrassed at the constituents. Is it my fault polyester wears well for work?

When I got home, I put my foot down with Alys. I said either we use different cleaners or she goes from now on. I think the message got through because Alys murmured “Yes, dear,” in a very docile tone. Gwen could be right; I just need to be firmer sometimes.

I spent most of the rest of the day packing and unpacking my bag for the trip tomorrow.

October 22-26:

I’m in the flag waving, gun toting, and the tub-thumping USA.

I know this will sound unlikely after what I’ve written but, despite the American government, despite the armed soldiers everywhere we went, and despite the understandably heightened emotions of the populace, I am enjoying my stay in the US. As I’ve found on previous visits, the people are ‘extreme’-ly nice, and this is the only place in my diary you will find the word ‘extreme’ written without sarcasm.

One day, we were lectured on the superiority of the American way-of-life over all others and I couldn’t help thinking, as I listened, that the Americans wrote their Constitution too soon after the War of Independence. They were still angry with the British Government and wrote a constitution reflecting their belief that the biggest threat to a citizen’s freedom was his, or her, own government; thus throwing out the lessons learned by Britons in the 1,000 years prior to 1776. What Britons had learned in that time was the greatest threat to a citizen’s liberty comes from fellow citizens in the shape of churches and sects, robber barons, gangs of freebooters, and other special interest coalitions (lately known as lobbyists). America is free of ‘government interference’ or ‘government support’ (choose your own interpretation) but their citizens are at the mercy of each other and, consequently, are constrained at every turn. Unfortunately, America’s success puts the rest of the western world in particular danger because, having stronger governments to balance personal liberties, they risk importing America’s private constraints too and doubling the chilling effect of restraint. Americans are in less danger because they won’t be allowed to work for humane social policies through the government; their rich people and businesses are too strong to allow that.

Everywhere we go here in the US, there are armed and uniformed men on the streets, most of them teenagers. Am I the only person who thinks it strange that we give guns to the group of people we know to be the most unstable, teenage males, and then train them to kill people? Putting young men through this military process at such an impressionable age is why the top ranks of American industry are filled with men who don't understand life or living. They’re all ‘graduates’ of the Vietnam War Management Academy. Maybe somebody should remind them they lost and that bringing the same techniques they used then to present day industry isn’t necessarily a good thing. I’m afraid for the future of the USA; they’re heading off on a militaristic track that leads nowhere good.

For example, the FBI says it’s time to forget civil rights and start using torture again because terrorism suspects are refusing to talk. Fortunately, the basic decency of the American people is prevailing and the suggestion has not been picked up by anyone, even though two more postal workers died from Anthrax poisoning.

Another plane crashed in New York this week. This one looks like an accident but the passengers are just as dead. I think I’ll walk home.

Saturday 27:

Arrived home after a short uneventful flight, disturbed only by my own fears. My family were so pleased to see me home they went out for the day, Alys and Gwen to the Mall and Lance to play road hockey at his friend’s house. Silky stayed in to keep me company and have her tummy tickled.

With my faithful cat at my side, I called dad. His veins are better but his stomach is upset. It’s a bug going round, he says. Gawain’s tummy upset is over; since he stopped overeating, says dad. I tried to tell them about my trip, in between the medical reports, without success. They hear everything I say as insincere sympathy and got crankier as the call went on. I gave up before Dad talked me out of his Will.

Sunday 28:

Today I got a reprieve from my other weekly torment. There was a young woman Assistant in the dry-cleaners and she was very friendly and helpful. Not that she had anything to complain about in my case, I’d unrolled the sleeves, unbuttoned the collars, and brushed off the cat fur. Alys had sneered at me as I did all this, asking if I was going to dry-clean the clothes too. I ignored her. She’s the one who should be going to the store; men aren’t equipped to deal with cranky female shop assistants.

Gwen was at work all day and Lance round at his buddy’s house playing video games. I had more contact with them when I was in the USA. At least there they talked to me on the phone -- because Alys made them. Spent the day smoothing the kitchen floor ready for the tiles while Alys, who was supposed to be cooking, stared balefully at the breakfast bar. My resolution remains unaltered despite this mental arm-wrestling. I took Alys off to the Extreme Coffee Pub to keep her mind off it. This turned out to be not such a good idea as they were renovating, removing the bar that used to jut out from the counter. Alys said, “See, breakfast bars are right out of fashion.”

My heart went out to the breakfast bar. I’ve been out of fashion all my life and I know how it feels.

Weight: plus 2 lbs. Not bad considering my week in a hotel and my lack of exercise during that time.

Monday 29:

Began planning my campaign to get someone to research documents for my procedure writers and file their work after they’ve finished. Those are the bits the men hate… other than the actual procedure writing I mean.

Toronto’s basketball team, the Raptors, isn’t having a good season, apparently. I don’t mind. Watching Gwen and Lance on their school teams, I quickly realised basketball is dismal. Stung by the complaint his new game was pointless, basketball's inventor gave points for everything, standing up, falling down, or running for more than a second before the referee flaps his arms like a windmill in a hurricane. Who’s the only person in basketball who breaks a sweat -- the referee, that’s who?

Tuesday 30:

Today’s paper had pictures of Canadian warships sailing out of British Columbia heading for Afghanistan. Everyone is feeling very patriotic and macho at this; I am full of foreboding. I’ve no doubt our soldiers, sailors and airmen will do a fine job. I just can’t see them ever getting out of the region. The US and Brits will pull out, leaving their lesser allies to be peacekeepers, probably for longer than Cyprus or Lebanon or any of the other places the UN has kept troops beyond when a proper victory on someone’s part would have settled, rightly or wrongly, the question.

Today, at work, was our contribution to the pharmaceutical industry’s recovery from recession -- flu shots! They used to be for the very old, very young, and those in poor health but that didn’t do enough for the industry so now we all are encouraged to have them. At the end of the first winter season when we all took the shots our company announced that the average sick days for those who didn’t have a shot was 1.5 and for those who did was 1.25. Despite the economic benefits of this difference (to the company, not the individual who still carries all the risks) being so small, they’ve taken to carrying out ever more aggressive marketing each year. Arthur Lakelady would rather have natural flu than the man-made stuff and, once again, I declined.

I mentioned my section’s need for a researcher to Mr. Ogilvie today and explained how it would increase production. He asked if I was mad; to be asking for more people when we’re fighting to hang onto the people we have? I let the issue drop. I’ve sown the seed.

Lance’s hockey team had its first practice tonight so I took him to the arena, then Gwen to soccer, and then Alys and I went back to the Extreme Coffee Pub because it’s handy. I had the ‘Extreme’ Rocky Road double chocolate Mississippi-mud Pie with extra whipped cream, chopped peanuts and a cherry. Alys had dry biscotti that she dunked in her ‘Extreme’ mountain-Columbian mesquite-roasted allspice-flavoured Latte. Alys really knows how to enjoy herself.

Wednesday 31:

Halloween

The first of our flu shot victims was off today with mild flu symptoms. She’ll be back tomorrow, she says.

This year I didn’t go out Trick or Treating with Lance. What a Treat! Year after year, since Gwen was three, I’ve been trudging around the neighbourhood with all the other Dads in the rain, snow, hail, wind and cold -- always cold. Of all North America’s holidays, this is the worst. It’s organised extortion in which the extortioner has all the discomfort. Tonight, I handed out candies to the kids who came to our door and found it surprisingly difficult and stressful. How many candies and what kind should each reveller get? In the end, I let them grab what they wanted from the bowl and we ran out early. Later in the evening, our carved pumpkins got smashed all over the patio, which hasn’t happened before. Alys says she’ll hand out the candies next year. I’m too relieved to be offended by the slur on my character.

November 2001:

Gathering Storm in a Teacup

Thursday 1:

Security is to be increased at work and everyone must re-submit a revised Security Clearance form for investigation. Again I put on my management face and support the initiative but I can’t see what good this will do. I fill in my form and mail it at once; at least in this regard, I need have no fear of something strange happening because I’ve never done anything remotely subversive in my life.

Presented my PAP to the MERD. It went very badly. My Public Speaking course didn’t cover what to do when attacked by mad dogs. The mad dogs say I have to do more research and present it again next week. Also, the only ‘actions’ they didn’t want doing were my three. They have forgotten they gave all the other ‘actions’ to other people. This may work in my favour. If I’m quick, I could close out their actions on my PAP against their actions on other people’s PAPs.

More flu shot victims were off work today, others hung around the water coolers discussing their fever, diarrhoea, and sundry symptoms. The main reason people who don’t have the shot miss work is because they catch the disease from those who do but won't stay home in case it shows up the flu shot for the fraud it is.

After years of ignoring encouragement from her parents to do something other than soccer Gwen finally decided to do ice hockey this winter and tonight was her first game ever. It wasn’t bad. Many of the girls were new to hockey, partly because girl’s hockey is new in Whitebay and partly because girls seem to get more interested in the sport when they get interested in boys, so Gwen’s lack of skating skills wasn’t a big problem. She was the hardest competitor out there.

The campaign to get ice hockey for girls was bolstered by the familiar complaint of discrimination. Boys have had hockey in Whitebay since the town began but not girls, so the refrain went. As usual, ignoring the fact that the boys and their dads organised their own league and girls did not. As well, the cry was there weren’t enough available arenas and the boys wouldn’t give up any of their ice time, which kept the girls from playing. Ignoring the fact the girls had ice time for figure skating, synchronised skating, and ringette, which together added up to more time in the arena than the boys. Like the ‘golden goal’ in overtime, crying discrimination is always a game winner.

Friday 2:

Worked on revising my PAP but as I haven’t really anything to add my work consisted of staring at my computer screen for about two hours.

The rest of the day I spent persuading my section to fill in the security forms and send them off. At first, I thought they were worried they might be deemed security risks but it turned out most people just thought the whole thing a waste of time. This is awful. If everyone has spotted it’s pointless, confidence in our leaders will plummet and morale will suffer. However, I think I convinced them to take the initiative seriously.

Mr. Ogilvie shook his head at me in disbelief when we passed in the hall today so I know the assistant seed is germinating.

After last week’s success, Alys took Lance to soccer practice again and I ‘assisted’ Gwen again. I think I’m on a winner here, so long as Gwen keeps her mouth shut. Unfortunately, she’s already hinting at favours required in exchange.

Weight: plus 3 lbs., which is catch up on last week’s trip, I hope.

Saturday 3:

As the tiles are now confirmed for next week, we booked the Tile Shoppe installation contractor (otherwise known as ‘Cousin Nico’) for the week beginning November 26; the earliest Cousin Nico could start. This leaves a week or so for late delivery and still leaves us plenty of time to have the house straight by Christmas. When she’d put the phone down on talking to the Tile Shoppe, Alys wandered around the empty kitchen muttering darkly about the unaltered breakfast bar. I’m holding fast onto this one, I feel somewhat King Arthur-ish in my determination to win this battle because I know trying to move that breakfast bar would be a disaster.

The new immigrants’ ID card announced a week or so ago has already run into problems. Like a lot of this stuff, it will fade from sight along with the war. Politicians have to be seen starting initiatives but they don’t have to finish them. Hopefully, the terrorist bill will fall into that category. On the same subject, the US says the ‘noose is tightening’ around Bin Laden. As they don’t know where he is, this statement seems a little optimistic.

Lance’s first ice hockey game and the team won, which is a good start to the season. It doesn’t feel like hockey season because the rain is still pouring down, keeping everything green outside. Fortunately, with so much exercise these past two days, Lance should be able to finish the other half of the pillowcase full of Halloween candies he hasn’t already eaten.

Called dad. His stomach bug has cleared up and Gawain’s stomach problems are gone too. Unfortunately, Dad’s ears are now giving him trouble. It started with an earache and now he’s totally deaf, he says. I spoke up, thinking it would help, but he said to stop shouting because it hurt his ears. He’s going to the doctors on Monday. Gawain has a headache and is lying on the couch with the lights off watching black and white movies because the colour ones hurt his eyes. Talking to Dad and Gawain is much the same as being at work because in neither case can I join in. At work, the talk is either sport or TV and I watch neither. With Dad it’s illness and I’m always healthy. I may as well be deaf and dumb; writing is my only outlet to the world of communication.

Sunday 4:

In the evening, we all went with Gwen for her first game of the indoor soccer season. It was an easy win, as always. Unfortunately, the indoor season gives the team a false sense of security because the competition is weaker than outdoor. Lance, as usual, was bored and bought doughnuts and pop to pass the time, having now finished his Halloween candy, and complained he could have been playing the video game he’s just rented. Alys and I watched the game and grumbled at the coach’s decisions, a typical night at the game, in fact.

Didn’t get to the dry cleaners so I missed meeting the She-Wolf.

Monday 5:

I lost weight this weekend! Weight: minus, say again, minus 1 lb. Finally, I’ve broken through the fat floor and I’m headed back to my proper weight. No change on the waistbands yet.

Most of my people still haven’t returned their new security forms. I reminded them of the need, warning them of the possible consequences to the Western World if one of them should turn out to be a sleeping terrorist. Mohammed pointed out that if he was a sleeping terrorist, he would hardly write that on the form. An argument I found hard to refute, other than to say, lamely, “Well, if you were honest, you would.”

Worked diligently on revising my PAP, honing the MERD’s irrelevant actions to somehow cure the root causes I found. The fact the MERD’s desired actions were to fix problems faced by their own departments and not my root causes made this a tricky task but I think I succeeded. I'm looking forward to Thursday and the MERD meeting with confidence. Question: would this be a good time to use Extreme Orator’s methods? Answer: no, it would not.

Gwen went to ice hockey practice in the evening, which is good. I think it would have been better if they’d had a practice before their first game but you can’t have everything.

I helped Lance with his homework for a time; then he decided Alys would be better. Judging by the discussion I participated in and the one I later listened to, I think both parents' support was about the same.

Tuesday 6:

Got an e-mail from security telling me who in my section was delinquent in sending in their forms. I reminded my people again and Padraig reminded me I was to get them more help. He says he can’t possibly find the time to fill in this form and meet all his deadlines too. He wants to slip all his deadlines two weeks to cover off the additional work of the form. I told him I’d spent fifteen minutes on the form, at most. Padraig said, “Yes, but you’ve never done anything, or been anywhere, or thought anything, that security might want to look into. I wasn’t so fortunate. I need time to properly present my home life in Northern Ireland or it might be misconstrued.” This doesn’t sound promising.

Continued tweaking my PAP.

In the evening, Alys and I helped Lance with his homework. We took turns sitting with him because if we leave him for a moment, he plays video games. Gwen did her own homework without any assistance, as usual.

Wednesday 7:

My department's people are all working on their security forms. How is it I have all the people who need to explain themselves to security?

One of our Canadian Directors, Juan Lostone, has fallen foul of the new order. He was escorted out today. My own nerves are stretched to breaking point whenever someone is walked out this way. I have to say it is a very effective management technique, much favoured by pirates and other sadistic brutes since time began. I've heard of the 'seagull manager', who makes a lot of noise, eats everything, shits on everything, and then flies off leaving the mess for someone else to clean up. We have a similar kind. The 'cuckoo manager', who sets up home in your nest, pushes the company fledglings out and eats all the food before flying off south to repeat the process at some other stupid corporation.

Continued tweaking my PAP. Not so confident today, on second reading some of the connections between causes and actions appear a bit tenuous.

Took Gwen to soccer practice and Lance to hockey practice. Gwen has applied for her full driving licence and will soon be able to drive herself to these events. I will feel quite lost.

Alys spent her free time in the kitchen, I think, hovering around that breakfast bar and plotting its demise. She had some new ideas on how to improve it when I got home but I’m proud to say I stood firm. Today Alys, tomorrow the MERD!

Thursday 8:

A New York woman has died of Anthrax poisoning and the US and allies are moving to cut off al-Qaeda’s funds.

Speaking of terrorism, my presentation to the MERD did not go well at all. They spotted how thin the connection was between my causes and their actions. They have strongly advised me to re-write my causes to make the connection clearer and re-present my PAP next week.

My staff is still working on their security forms BUT I’m getting some short-term assistance in my section. Mr. Ogilvie agreed to me hiring a temp, to increase productivity. “The sooner you’re finished, the better for everyone,” he said. I’m glad he’s coming around to seeing the value of my section’s work. Pity it has taken four years to reach this point. We have to go to an outside agency for help because there are no clerical people left in our company; they were downsized in the last re-organisation.

What kind of qualifications does one need to manage documentation systems in a large, labyrinthine, now multinational, corporation? I contacted the local temporary help agencies and await their response.

Gwen’s ice hockey team won tonight’s game and they were very pleased with themselves. I knew practice was useful for something.

Friday 9:

Our local nuclear power company has announced that the station they closed down four years ago to ‘focus on their newer units and return them to top performance’ and which they had planned to return to service by December will not, in fact, be ready then. It will be ready for Electricity Market Opening on May 1st, 2002. In fact, we’re told it must be running by then or the supply situation could be tight when the air-conditioning season starts. This station was to restart back in the summer and this is the second delay announcement; look out for more. I hope the delay is to ensure they get it right because we live between two of the utility’s nuclear plants, one of which is the one being restarted.

Worked on revising my PAP to meet the MERD's needs. Will try to re-introduce my actions into the revision in the hope of salvaging something from this mess. I’m also working on a plan to ensure I never get picked as an SAP again.

I took Lance to soccer practice because Gwen didn’t have any homework and she and Alys were going shopping. Then a bunch of Gwen’s friends arrived and they went shopping, leaving Alys stuck at home. Now I have to go shopping with Alys tomorrow and I hate shopping! And Alys hates taking me because she said I sulk. For the record, I do not sulk. I simply try to encourage Alys to come home when she has bought what we came for and to buy it first rather than wandering around looking at other stuff.

Weight: plus 1 lb?? What is going on? Can the gym scales, which are the old-fashioned beam and weight kind, be unreliable?

Saturday 10:

FBI says the Anthrax campaign down there is likely the work of a young male loner. On this topic, I more or less agree with the FBI and if it isn't your average hormonally challenged young man I can suggest a better alternative. If I were ‘crime profiler’ I’d be looking for a middle-aged man, in a company being reorganised, who is beset by niggling little irritations brought about by rampant consumerism and self-important (other) people.

Lance’s team won their second game of the hockey season. This is the best start Lance has ever had and reflects the inexperience of his first-time coach. He will lose his top players in the balancing (where the league tries to even out the teams), which happens after next week’s game. I gave the coach the benefit of my insight and he says he’s not worried. His son is the best player on the team and they can’t take him away. Once again, foreboding overwhelms me. I’m like that Trojan woman, Cassandra, who was always predicting doom and no one would listen. I hope she got raped and pillaged to a good home after Troy fell, I should look it up. If she did, maybe I will too, when our Troy falls.

Called dad. His earache is gone and has been replaced by a sinus headache. After he’d described the state of his handkerchief when he blew his nose, I didn’t feel well enough to continue our conversation and quickly rang off. Gawain is better -- but pretending not to be, to get out of work, Dad says.

Gwen was at work so I went to the Mall with Alys where I spent my time hanging around outside women’s clothes shops. Men’s lives are spent loitering, waiting to get into some women’s pants, waiting for some woman to buy herself new pants, or waiting for them to come out of the toilet. No wonder most men take up sports. Alys doesn’t approve of golf but would she let me do something quicker, like squash?

Sunday 11:

In the morning, Alys sent me out to pick up the dry cleaning (definitely my last trip!) and to do some shopping. I think Alys has been avoiding the dry cleaners. Maybe the She-Wolf is too much even for her. My lecture today went like this:

She-Wolf, on finding we hadn’t picked up our cleaning last week, “Can’t you see the signs?” She pointed to the three large hand-written signs around the shop exhorting customers to pick up their clothes early because it’s a small store.

Me, apologetically, “We were away last Sunday.”

She-Wolf, sarcastically, “Do you only come out on Sundays? We charge $10 if you go past a month, you know.”

I fled, only to be victimised by a dove at a traffic light. While I waited for the lights to change, a dove walked out from under a car ahead of me in the outer lane. I just knew it would fly up when the cars moved and splatter its lifeblood over my windshield. Things weren't that bad. It flew up all right but landed on my front bumper. I braked. The tires on the eighteen-wheel rig behind me screeched, which frightened the dove and it flew up onto my hood. It stayed there while I drove gently through the junction. The eighteen-wheeler wasn’t able to make it before the lights changed and the blast of his horn followed me all the way into a supermarket parking lot. I parked round the back so he couldn’t see and come after me. The dove, its mission to bring peace to Ontario’s roads completed, flew off when I got out of the car -- just before I could wring its neck.

This urge to kill a fellow sufferer on the planet Earth emboldened me and I decided I should go back to the dry cleaners and face down my demon. When I saw it in that light, I knew that Alys’s docility on hearing my decision not to go again stemmed from disappointment and not respect. She’d seen at once that I’d never save her if a real dragon threatened. With this new stiffened resolve, I drove home and told Alys we were to continue using the She-Wolf’s dry cleaners. She said, ‘Yes, dear,’ in what I’m sure was an awed whisper. Maybe there’s something in this macho man thing after all; I feel I may have risen in her estimation.

Took Gwen to indoor soccer and another easy win. I’ll be pleased when Gwen gets her licence, driving for an hour and a half to watch a fifty-minute game is pretty stupid, particularly when the team has a big squad and players only get fifteen minutes playing time.

Alys spent all day helping Lance with his homework. How come, when we were kids, we did our homework and now we’re adults we’re doing our kids homework? At the last school Open Day I saw projects, like fully functioning nuclear reactors and internal combustion engines, supposedly done by twelve-year-olds. Our support to Lance and Gwen is amateurish by comparison.

Monday 12:

Mohammed has handed in his security form; the others are still working on theirs.

I have to say employment agencies are fast. Resumes began arriving by fax and e-mail today and I’m going to interview the first candidate tomorrow. There are all sorts of people out there who want to do clerical work, BA’s, MA’s, Phd’s, even some old ex-clerical people. Why are we grinding our children into library dust for an education when the result is a job they could have once gotten with a high school dropout’s diploma? The answer is because nowadays you need a B.Sc. in Hospitality Technology to get a job flipping hamburgers.

I haven’t thought of a way to get out of being an SAP. In the meantime, I prepared for Thursday’s MERD again. I wish it were still summertime because then various members of the MERD go on vacation and often what is fought over one week is waved through the next. With the MERD, luck is an important element -- as it is with anything our senior management touches.

Drove Gwen to ice hockey practice again and we chatted guardedly about her plans for University. She doesn’t trust me after our last chat. I did learn she has narrowed her sights to Canada; Newfoundland or BC are the front-runners. I said jokingly, her mum and I wouldn’t be able to visit her there often and she was polite enough to say she was sorry about that but she wanted to see more of this great country.

When we got home, we found Alys and Lance had fallen out over his homework again so I was sent straight up to Lance’s room to check it was done. Sat up till midnight watching Lance work and writing my diary.

Tuesday 13:

On coming down to breakfast this morning, I found the real reason I’d been sent to watch Lance work. The breakfast bar, which we never used for breakfast, was missing. Not all of it, just enough that it couldn’t be replaced. Alys says I can finish tidying up the rest when I get home because it was too much for her. Easier said than done. It was an integral piece of the countertop with a cupboard and drawers underneath. I have two weeks to ‘tidy up’ before the tilers arrive and they won’t bring enough tiles to do the additional floor space left behind when the bar is gone! Went to work in a depressed mood.

Renee has handed in her security form. She's very nervous about the whole process and says it’s a government plot to round us all up and put us in camps; this is how it began back home. Is she right and, if so, am I going to find myself short-handed?

Worked some more on my PAP, with ever diminishing hopes. Thursday morning, early, would be a good day for the asteroid scientists are always worrying about to hit Earth. Wednesday night would be even better.

In the morning, I interviewed an excellent candidate for my records clerk position except he had a Ph.D. in Computer Science and was determined to rebuild our document system from the bottom up. I don’t think Mr. Ogilvie would like that, nor would the Senior Vice-President of Information Systems Maintenance, Improvement and Excellence, who is quite protective of his turf.

In the afternoon, I met another candidate, a young woman with only one or two facial piercings and excellent qualifications, an Honours degree in Oral Communication. Unfortunately, while I’m sure her vocabulary and grammar would have been first-rate, the three ball-shaped studs in her tongue and the one in her lower lip made her tough to understand. On the plus side were her nipple rings and the chain connecting them, which her thin T-shirt entirely failed to hide. Still I decided against hiring her, much to the disappointment of the males in my section who saw her chest arriving for the interview. I hope it won’t come back to haunt me. She may have gang connections, or worse, a lawyer.

Britain has announced plans to hold foreigners suspected of terrorism indefinitely without trial. Britons have short memories too. It was that policy in Northern Ireland that turned hundreds of IRA sympathisers into IRA terrorists.

Gwen offered to help with the breakfast bar when I got home but, fortunately, she had to go to work and I was able to start with only Lance’s help. Alys had made herself scarce shopping for a new countertop. By the time she came home, the woodworking part was complete; i.e. I had cut off the ragged ends with my power saw. The gaping hole in the cupboards where the breakfast bar used to be will take more than one night to fix.

Wednesday 14:

The Taliban have lost Kabul and the north of Afghanistan to the Northern Alliance, the present bunch of mass murderers we favour.

Miguel has handed in his security form. He agrees with Renee; we’re all going to be ‘disappeared’. They all want me to give them a character reference, all except Padraig, who says he doesn’t trust any Brit -- not even one who’s been here as long as I have. Should I trust Padraig who hasn’t been here as long as me?

I have found the perfect candidate for my job. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself, a History graduate with a major in Byzantine bureaucracy! Lydia, the graduate I'm referring to, turned up for an interview today. She has no obvious tattoos or piercing, other than earrings, which everyone has nowadays (particularly boys), and she understands an organisation’s need for reams of densely written documents. I hired her at once. I wish the Universities were turning out more students with useful knowledge instead of tradesmen’s skills.

Alys drove Gwen to soccer and Lance to hockey practice so I could write my diary and practise presenting my PAP. I know the PAP by heart now so my presentation should be easy. Sadly, no asteroid had landed by 11 pm when I went to bed.

Thursday 15:

The MERD finally passed my PAP, without me saying a word, after removing my actions -- again. This is a relief, particularly as I plan to wait a week or so and close out all the actions they imposed on me to the other CRAPs from where I got them. Once I’ve done that, I will be able to do nothing. I spent most of the day inputting my CRAP into the ACR system. I made a note in my PC Planner schedule for next Thursday to close them all out. Some days, as I think I mentioned before, my genius just shines through.

The talk around the water coolers today was of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show on TV last night. Some parts had to be blurred out by the networks and the discussion centres on this vital infringement of civil liberties. Our own government can throw us in jail for minor misdemeanours in the War on Terrorism but we get upset about not being able to see all or, if you are in the ‘demeans women’ camp, being able to see any of the ladies’ private parts. It’s good to know we haven’t lost all sense of proportion in these sombre times.

All the Lakelady family went to Gwen’s ice hockey game and, of course, they lost. Lance was very sarcastic about the quality of play, casually ignoring his eight years of formal and informal practice and play. No wonder women complain about men demeaning them.

Friday 16:

Bereft of any real news, the papers announce that the US is tightening the noose around Bin Laden -- again. People-in-the-street, however, have stopped listening and moved on to more urgent matters like the Victoria’s Secret debate, which still rages.

Weather is cold and wet, like every other day this fall. Of course, the weather brings out the ethnic ‘British’ jokes, ‘it’s all right for you with your waterproof skin,’ or ‘this must make you feel at home, eh?’ and ‘take this lot back with you when you go.’ In our mad world, the Human Rights Commission would award me compensation if I complained to them. I could cash in with a big settlement and not have to go through another reorganisation, or worse, writing another PAP. I say that because Gerry says the MERD were so pleased with my performance writing the last PAP, they want me to do more! I think he’s making it up. He’s always claiming to know more about what’s going on at the top than the rest of us.

Alys and Gwen went looking for a new countertop while Lance and I wandered round Home Terminal trying to find a reasonable solution to the gaping hole. It’s too big for a door and Alys says she doesn’t want a slab of board slapped on because that would look tacky. I wish stores had the sensible closing times they used to do. It would have been very pleasant to be kicked out at nine o’ clock instead of being forced, by a lack of ideas, to haunt the aisles till midnight. Even Lance, who will normally even do homework to stay up beyond his bedtime, was tired of it by then.

Saturday 17:

Our Internet Provider (IP to those of us in the know) was using the Extreme Corporation service and Extreme is in financial trouble in the USA. In order to serve us customers better, and maintain service in the event of an Extreme collapse, our IP is moving to another service and they e-mailed instructions on how to convert to the new service -- starting with the e-mail service. I spent the best part of the day tinkering with the e-mail conversion, following the instructions religiously. I say religiously for a reason. It involved lots of incomprehensible mumbling, with a mountain of imagined sins cursed and -- at the end -- it all came down to faith. Now it doesn’t work. I called their Help Line. It was busy.

Lance’s hockey team won its third game. I told the coach he should have played his son in goal instead of letting him score three goals. He snorted derisively but he’ll be sorry he didn’t listen.

Gwen came home from work before we got back and removed the doors from the remaining kitchen cabinets. She says this way the hole isn’t noticeable. Oddly enough, while it isn’t a practical solution, it works; you don’t notice the hole. I’m leaving it as it is because it gives me time to find a final solution. Alys, unfortunately, didn’t think it funny and said so, loudly and often, and she and Gwen had a row but it serves Alys right. It was her taking unilateral action on the breakfast bar that got us into this mess. She can hardly complain about Gwen taking unilateral action on the hole where the breakfast bar used to be. Alys didn’t like me taking Gwen’s side so she isn’t speaking to me either. No spoon-hugging tonight!

Called dad. His sinuses are better (thank God) and Gawain is better too. In fact, they are both fit and well (‘relatively speaking, for men of their age and living where they do and in the times we live, etc.’)! Unfortunately, Aunt Hester is very ill and so is my Cousin Peter.

Sunday 18:

After further tinkering with the e-mail, re-doing all the instructions again in case I missed something, it still didn’t work and worse, the Internet side of the service didn’t work either. Help Line still busy and I’m infuriated by their recorded message, which says e-mail them. If they wanted us to use e-mail them during the conversion, why did they choose to screw it up first!! More, increasingly frantic, efforts to make it work are of no avail and I call it quits, among other names not so printable.

Went to dry-cleaners in a macho frame of mind, determined to face down the She-Wolf. Our confrontation went something like this.

She-Wolf, staring at the hand written receipt I gave her, “What’s this?”

New me, in a firm macho tone, “The machine was down when we brought our clothes in on Wednesday.”

The She-Wolf sniffed and began punching into the computer the information from the slip of paper. For a moment, I felt quite proud.

She-Wolf, “This phone number isn’t on the computer.”

New me, still macho but puzzled, “It must be. I’m here every Sunday.”

The She-Wolf read the number out slowly and I saw the problem right away. Wednesday’s assistant had transposed two numbers. I told the She-Wolf the correct number.

She-Wolf, “That’s not what it says here.”

Me, exasperated, “The girl transposed two numbers. It’s easily done.”

She-Wolf, acting unconvinced, “And neither you nor your wife noticed? I can’t give out Mrs. Lakelady’s clothes to anyone who comes in here, you know. Security’s important. People need to feel their clothes are safe with us.”

Me, far past sane, “Do you think terrorists go about stealing people’s clothes? What would they do with my wife’s blouses and my pants?”

She-Wolf, “How should I know what terrorists do?” Then she added grimly, her beady eyes boring into my soul, “Or what they look like?”

I showed my driver’s licence to satisfy her I wasn’t planning world domination through stealing the Lakeladys’ clothes and left. Reflecting on this exchange as I drove home, I was, at first, downcast by my lack of success but then I decided it wasn’t so bad. At least I got our clothes, which didn’t seem likely early on, and I did stand up for myself for once. So I look forward to next week’s encounter with something like courage.

Most of the afternoon was spent looking for a countertop without success. We will have to have one made. And we will if we can find a colour and pattern ‘we’ like. It’s harder than picking tiles. Lance and Gwen have developed strong opinions about what a kitchen should look like -- unfortunately they aren’t similar opinions. I blame the plague of shows about home decorating on TV these days.

Gwen went to indoor soccer with Alys, who maintained a prim ‘I’m only doing my motherly duty by being here’ expression on the spectators' bench. It’s a wonder the team didn’t fold under her disapproving glare. However, they didn’t and it was another comfortable win.

Monday 19:

Gerry says Web-Builder magazine recommends not using an IP at all. (I asked, very satirically, why it wasn’t called Extreme Web Builder but Gerry failed to answer. I expect it’s because the Web is too new and hasn’t yet gone through the quite difficult, very difficult, and extra difficult stages.) Web-Builder recommends a wireless link to the Web via a geostationary US military satellite conveniently located over the Western Hemisphere. I’ve no doubt Web Builder’s editor runs ‘Extreme’ Decathlons in his spare time.

People at work are back to discussing the War on Terrorism, it’s quite overshadowed downsizing and Victoria’s Secret as the chief topic around the water coolers. I’m not sure why the change because nothing much is happening in that war, certainly no more than in the Corporation’s ‘War on Employment’ or the Victoria’s Secret’s ‘War on Warm Flannel Underwear’. I’m glad I’ve got my Internet problem to keep me occupied otherwise the Restructuring Team might think I have as little to do like the rest of our staff. I spent all day waiting on the phone for an IP service representative to answer, without success. However, the time wasn’t entirely wasted, I can now hum all Barry Manilow and Barry White’s hits. Are all people called Barry sickly sentimentalists or is it just a coincidence with these two?

Lydia started today and quickly got into the swing of things. How right I was in my choice. What looks like a pointless and baffling series of different document repositories to the untrained eye is plain sailing to her. She’s also the only person I’ve ever met who has an affinity to Portaluus, our document and work-tracking database. I doubt if even its unmarried programming parents (and there must have been many screwing up over a long period of time and in isolation from, if not at odds with, each other) showed the same intuitive understanding.

Apparently, Lydia has a tattoo. She offered to show me but I declined the invitation hastily. I continued to say no even after she assured me it is quite decent and only on her shoulder; I think she was a little hurt by my lack of interest. This revelation has shaken my good opinion but I think it’s okay. Young people have to kick up the traces and a small, discreet tattoo is a fairly harmless way of doing it.

The evening was spent searching aimlessly through samples of the countertop. We bought a million samples home to compare to our kitchen woodwork (though we could have taken the woodwork to the store because most of it is piled in the basement) but none were quite right. Gwen said we needed to compare to the new tiles too -- not helpful.

Weight: no change. I’ve obviously stabilised things after my trip. It should start heading down now.

Tuesday 20:

No doubt as part of the noose tightening exercise, the US has upped the bounty on Bin Laden to $25M.

Mohammed, who apparently left Egypt in a hurry after Sadat was assassinated, is the first of my staff to be cleared by security, which I put down to them looking at his papers first on account of his name.

Lydia has more than one tattoo and despite being pressed, I declined to see any of them. She also frequents basement clubs with names like The Cadaver Club and The Casket Club, where the patrons dress up like vampires. They call themselves Goths, I gather. Lydia and Alys share a common bond; they both believe in the superiority of the past over today, both believe in women being cosseted damsels protected and cherished by valiant heroes, and both would frighten the life out of Attila the Hun if he were unlucky enough to cross them. In fact, I’m coming to the opinion most marauding tribes, Huns, Goths, Vandals, and Vikings, were just a bunch of men escaping from their even more ferocious womenfolk -- a bit like modern men who order brides from Asia, in the hope of getting a wife who won’t eat them alive. Some hope!

[Alys, who came into the room and read this over my shoulder while I was writing, says I have to take that last part out but I won’t because she’s gone now and this is an accurate record, not to be censored by anyone. We won’t be spoon-hugging again and in a way I’m almost glad. Sex at our age! Sex is for babies.]

My Public Speaking speech this month was on the War and Security in the Western World and emphasised my opinion concerning the foolishness of all the heightened security everywhere. It wasn't as well received as my earlier speeches. At one point in the debate, I thought the teacher was going to have to wrestle some dissenters to the ground. The debate so unnerved me I could barely finish. Even my PAP experience of the past weeks didn’t help. Next month, I’ll do a less controversial topic.

Wednesday 21:

Gerry says Extreme Renovator recommends replacing the kitchen with a stainless steel, kettle-style barbecue surrounded by a light, airy open space. People who want to sit while they eat can use beanbags or sit cross-legged on the Sicilian marble floor. I asked where people who wanted to store their food before cooking put their groceries, but Gerry couldn’t remember.

Speaking of home decoration, this year’s tasteful Christmas outdoor ornaments are blow-up doll Santas and Snowmen lit from inside. Driving home in the dark, I saw a number of them on various lawns around the town. They make last year’s ‘in’ ornament, icicle lights, look tastefully traditional.

Finally spoke to someone at the IP Help Line. They can’t help me. I need to call someone else. Call ‘someone else’ and, some time after midnight, they put me back to the first person I spoke to and whose phone is once again busy. Today’s telephone music is New Country. I prefer Old Country; at least, you could enjoy the joke -- even though it was on you, the listener. New Country sounds like Rock, is as smugly self-important as Rock, but unlike Rock has words you can hear, which is very annoying.

When I got back to the first person, they grudgingly parted with a string of letters and dots and, after rooting around in my computer from her office in Tulsa or Yellowknife or somewhere, she told me where to put them; the letters and dots, that is. I followed the instructions and, amazingly, my computer is cured. Now I wonder why the string of letters and dots wasn’t included in the instructions or why she didn’t put them in when she was rooting around inside. Does everyone get together behind my back and plan ways to annoy me?

While I was doing battle with the IP gods, Alys took Gwen and Lance to soccer and hockey practice respectively then she and one of the moms from Gwen’s team went shopping, ‘to let me have some peace and quiet while I played about with my computer’. It’s only ‘my’ computer when it isn’t working; the rest of the time I can’t get on it for kids doing homework, or Hotmailing their friends and sexual deviants, or else it's Alys paying bills and looking up old school friends.

Thursday 22:

The US says Bin Laden is on the run and the noose is tightening. They say this to distract attention from the other announcement, which was the number of dead at the WTC, estimated at the time as being tens of thousands, is now less than 3,900. Where was everybody who should have been at work that day? Apparently, since that day most of them have been hiding in their basements while their spouses claimed the life insurance. Americans are a truly ingenious people.

DISASTER! I went into the ACR system to carry out my dastardly cunning plan of closing out my actions against all the previous actions, and I found all the owners of the previous actions had closed out their actions to mine!! I asked the DOLT if this was acceptable behaviour and Cec Hobbgobelin, Chief of the ACR system, said it was the usual thing to do!!! He then asked if I’d be the SAP for another ‘documentation’ ACR that has just arrived!!!! I said no and he replied, “It wasn’t really a request. The MERD had already decided you’re doing it.” Two things upset me about this, one is I have to go through another round of root cause investigation and PAP writing and the other is, Gerry does seem to know more than I do about what’s going on around here. Maybe he is ‘in’ with senior management.

Our bank has merged with another bank. Us users wouldn’t even notice the difference after the merger, they said, and I didn’t -- until I tried to use it. We wanted to make changes over the Internet to our savings portfolio, only to be told that service was no longer available on our particular parcel of funds. Undismayed, I went to our local bank branch and recognised no one behind the counter. When I asked them to make the financial adjustments, the pleasant young man I addressed asked, “Do you have any identification?”

I retorted, “I’ve been coming here for fifteen years and I’ve never seen you before. Have YOU any identification?” Finally, after much huffing and puffing, old Mavis was wheeled out from the vault, where they’d locked her, cryogenically frozen, for just these kinds of emergencies, and she confirmed I was who I said I was. They made the small adjustment I wanted and we parted on superficially amicable terms. I shall pull every one of my pennies out of their bank as soon as possible.

Gwen and her team winning at ice hockey brightened this awful day. Lance complained about the quality of the play, as usual, and technically he’s correct. However, it’s such a pleasure to see people having fun playing sports that I’m happy to settle for mediocrity on the stick handling. Now I look back on it, I’ve hardly enjoyed watching soccer or hockey since Lance was seven. Alys, for once, agrees with me.

Friday 23:

I began reading through the new ACR I’ve been assigned. Apparently our documentation management system is understaffed and has no space left since we closed down the old headquarters building. They are unable to keep pace with the company’s requirements, even with the superb new computerised system we installed after we got rid of all the people. I have to find the root cause of the problem and fix it. My guess is the root cause, our CEO, Mr. Genuflecten-Grovel, is already fixed and, even if he isn’t, he’s beyond the need for fixing. Maybe if we put out a contract on his grown children, who are already working their way up the ranks of the corporation, we could stop the problem from repeating itself in the future. Unfortunately, the world is full of Mr. Genuflecten-Grovels and short on sober, steady Arthur Lakeladys.

Lydia showed me the outfit she’s wearing for tonight at the Casket Club. I advised her to dress after she’d left work, rather than in the company washroom as she planned. She assured me she had a long black cloak to cover up with and she’d wait till everyone had gone home. I hope she does; the Code of Business Conduct doesn’t specifically forbid sexually explicit outfits on the premises but only because they never thought anyone would wear anything like that in the office. I found the outfit disturbing enough on the hanger and squeaked, “No” when Lydia offered to model it for me after everyone left. I believe no one should wear clothes, I’ve argued the point on many occasions, and this is exactly why we shouldn’t. Clothes are far more stimulating than nudity. Everyone going nude would, I believe, have two important benefits for society; one, people would watch their weight, and two the population would fall steadily because sex would become extinct.

Lance’s hockey team, what’s left of it after the 'balancing', had a practice tonight with their new players; only one of whom could actually skate. All the solid workers are gone, much like our reorganisations at work to be honest.

Driving back from hockey, I noticed the strong wind we’ve had these past few days has blown down all the blow-up Santa and Snowmen dolls. On the lawns of Whitebay, it looks like Santa is doing push-ups, or, in one place, Santa is ‘doing’ a Snowman (or Snowwoman).

Saturday 24:

Lance’s hockey team lost really badly even though the coach’s son scored a goal. Three of the players that were ‘traded’ from our team showed up on the other team and took great delight in scoring and setting up goals for their new teammates. At the end of the game, the players started fighting and, when the riot cleared, the coach’s son was still lying on the ice. We heard later in the evening, his leg is broken and he is out for the rest of the season. This is going to be a long winter.

Called dad. He isn’t very well. He had the flu shot and now he has the flu, complete with vomiting, diarrhoea, hot and cold flashes, and aches and pains in his joints. Gawain is no help because he’s being pathetic about another trifling cold he’s picked up from somewhere, or so Dad says. Aunt Hester is worse but Uncle Frank is better, which was a pleasant surprise because I didn’t know he’d been ill. Cousin Peter has dropped from sight. Not literally, it’s just no one has updated Dad on his condition.

Gwen says I’ve got to come to grips with the ‘Lance problem’ or he and I will end up like Dad and Gawain, emulating each other’s illnesses. She says this because I’ve had a ticklish cough these past days and now Lance is coughing, discreetly so we ‘don’t know’ he’s ill. I reassured her the situations were completely different. It’s just a phase Lance is going through and he’ll grow out of it in no time. Gwen went purple, bit her lip, balled her fists and growled, “Wake up and smell the Java,” whatever that means. Sometimes, I don’t understand my kids at all.

After last night’s wind and rain storm, the blow-up Santas that were all laying flat are now all ripped to shreds and it’s the hard plastic ‘free-standing’ ones that are now doing push-ups on all the lawns in town.

Bought a piece of oak patterned chipboard that matches our kitchen cupboards and a whole new set of cupboard doors. I couldn’t find a matching door so all the old cupboard doors will have to go to the dump. Gwen was right to remove them after all. Spent most of the day working and cursing in the kitchen. Alys, Gwen, and Lance helped me by going out. By the time I was finished, I’d bruised one fingernail so badly I’m sure it will fall off and my hands were scratched to pieces. They looked like Silky had slept on them. Unfortunately, this was after I’d called dad and they’ll all be healed by next Saturday so, once again, I’ll have nothing to talk about.

Sunday 25:

Met my nemesis at the OK Corral dry-cleaners and she was surprisingly civil. I’d screwed up all my dwindling reserves of courage for the meeting and I didn’t need them. I think I’m accepted as a regular now, which is a good feeling. I don’t frequent bars or other watering holes so being a regular at the dry cleaners is as close as I get to community spirit.

I spent much of the day smoothing the floor where the breakfast bar had been, filling in holes and sanding. If the tilers arrive on Monday, I don’t want them saying they can’t work because the floor isn’t properly prepared.

Gwen’s indoor soccer team won. This time, I watched the game on my own because Alys and Lance didn’t come. They stayed home to prepare Lance for a math test tomorrow.

Monday 26:

Cousin Nico and the boys failed to turn up; just as well we left ample time before Christmas or we might be eating out for the holidays. “They’ll be there tomorrow,” says Gina, the friendly lady at the Tile Shoppe.

Somehow, despite being tied up and imprisoned in an old fort, Taliban prisoners got hold of guns. Air strikes and western Special Forces killed them all, many with their hands still bound behind their backs.

I asked Lydia how her evening went at the Casket Club and she smiled dreamily. I didn’t press the point. She suggests I come along and experience life without inhibitions myself. I pointed out I had no inhibitions; I grew up in the Sixties and Seventies. Lydia says I was too young and too far out of the scene in the Sixties and Seventies to understand about inhibitions. She has a point but I’m still not going with her. Alys would never allow it. Sadly, because I couldn’t help saying ‘I told you so’ to Lydia, when her hoarse voice confirmed she has the cold in her chest I warned her about last Friday night when I saw her costume, she didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

I have laid out my Terms of Reference for my new root cause analysis and begun alerting victims of my coming investigation.

Lance says he did well on the math test. I hope so or his mom will be down on those teachers like an avenging angel. Alys is joining the Parent School Council. She’s decided the kids who have parents on the council do better than kids who don’t and Lance is not going to miss out because of other people’s manipulation of the system. She’s going to keep them honest, or make sure Lance gets a share of the dishonesty as a bare minimum. Gwen says Lance should just do his schoolwork then it wouldn’t be necessary for his mom to do anything. Alys said Gwen doesn’t understand life and should keep her negative opinions to herself; Lance’s confidence will be damaged by this kind of talk and he’ll fail. What he needs is to be reassured to bolster his spirit. Gwen snorted and stomped off to her room to do her homework. Lance went back to his computer game.

Tuesday 27:

Cousin Nico didn’t arrive again today, definitely tomorrow says Gina at the Tile Shoppe.

Continued on my Terms of Reference for the MERD on Thursday and, while twisting in my chair to reach a binder, put my back out. I left early and crawled into my bed at home to ease the pain, which is where Lance found me when he came back from school. Taking his cue from me, he leapt on the bed, landing flat beside me and bouncing me up toward the ceiling. I’m afraid I wasn’t very understanding when I landed back on the mattress and Lance went off to his computer in a huff.

Gwen and Alys visited me when they too arrived home and were more sympathetic than Lance until Alys learned I’d yelled at Lance and then she wouldn’t speak to me. She says she thought I was more of a man than to take out my frustrations on a small boy. As this ‘small boy’ is forever crowing about how he’s taller than his mother and sister, I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t speak. Alys took my stunned silence to mean I was ignoring her and stomped out of the room. It is now nearly eleven o’clock and she still hasn’t reappeared, and nor has any supper appeared. Silky has appeared and is now sleeping on my stomach; I daren’t move in case she becomes frightened and her claws ravage my private parts as she leaps off. Silky and I will spoon-hug tonight. She’s the only one who really cares.

Wednesday 28:

Today it was reported that the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, commented about Taliban prisoners, “the President said dead or alive and I know which I prefer.” Effectively, he has now given his murderous Afghan allies carte blanche to massacre their prisoners, as though they needed encouragement. Considering there’s no proof any of the prisoners belong to the Al-Qaeda terrorist group or even that Al-Qaeda were responsible for the WTC attack, this is nothing more than cold-blooded murder, except in Texas where it’s considered a citizens arrest.

I hobbled into work after getting my own breakfast; Alys hasn't forgiven me for raising my voice to ‘her’ little boy. I know it’s the stereotypical thing to do but, on my way home, I’ll pick up some flowers for her.

People at work are no more sympathetic than my family. A number, including Gerry, slapped me on the back and offered various remedies, most of which seemed to require lying on the floor and letting them walk on me.

Absolutely sure the tilers will be there tomorrow, says the woman at the tile store.

I finished the root cause analysis Terms of Reference and practiced presenting them.

My family eyed me coldly from the supper table as I limped in through the door bearing my peace offering. Alys accepted the gift and thawed enough to tell me which vase to put them in. Gwen and Lance seemed even colder than before, probably because they didn’t get a present. I ate a chilly, lonely supper and crawled up to bed. At least Silky joined me again; she’s such a comfort in my hour of need. We had a brief talk about my day, and then she went to sleep. We’ll spoon-hug again tonight. At least Silky doesn’t mind me writing my diary as we hug. Alys can get very strange about it. She says I should be massaging her back, not using it for a desk.

Alys took Gwen and Lance to soccer and hockey practice respectively so I could rest my back. This symptom of Alys’s concern touched me, till she added, “Maybe then you’ll stop play-acting and get on with some work.”

Thursday 29:

The Lying B%#^* at the Tile Shoppe excuses her relatives with the following sweet words, “There’s no point in them coming now because they don’t work weekends so instead of a five-day job it would be a seven-day one.”

I agree, through clenched teeth, and the date is reset for next Monday.

Our merged banks have followed up more quickly than I have after last week’s confrontation. They sent us a letter saying we must close out the particular package of funds we have saved for years and replace them with newly approved ones. I am more than ever determined to remove my money from their bank. I can’t believe the way this has gone; they merged and I’m supposed to put my affairs in their order so they can do what they want their way with my money.

The MERD didn’t like my Terms of Reference. It seems that the corporation’s removing all the documentation specialists and closing down the Corporate Library at the last reorganisation is not the problem. The problem is that the remaining handful of demoralised records management people aren’t working smart enough and I have to find out why and suggest ways of curing them of their laziness.

Hobbled home, low of spirit and bent of back, to be greeted coldly by Alys and Gwen at the door. Lance has hurt his back in the gym today and somehow it’s my fault. He is lying on his bed in terrible pain and I’m the only one strong enough to get him in the car and to the doctor. The doctor gave him some muscle relaxant and told him to lie down when we got home and on no account is he to do any chores. Alys says I’m to do them.

I took Gwen to her ice hockey game, mainly to get out of doing chores. They lost but watching was still fun and Gwen says playing is too. The game didn’t end in a brawl and no one was sent off the ice. Can it really be considered hockey?

Friday 30:

Renee, who came to Canada as a refugee from the recent fighting in the Bosnia, is okay according to Security. Her look of relief and surprise, when I told her, is a secret just between us. I think Security should be on a need-to-know basis, in this case.

Began revising my Terms of Reference to incorporate the comments from yesterday’s MERD. Is it too late for that asteroid?

Lydia had a different outfit for the club tonight. I wish I could say it was a better one. When I sardonically enquired why she felt it necessary to cover the few places it did cover, as there was no discernible value in covering them and no one else did, she said it was to preserve some mystery. I didn’t think there was much mystery in the backs of people’s hands and knees. I declined her offer to model again and I felt bad about it all day and all the way home. Constantly turning down offers to become closer to one’s staff isn’t a good thing; my training course said it’s bad for employee morale. Lydia will think I don’t like her and that’s not the case. When we talk about history and literature, I find we have so much in common. She’s read everything I have and thinks pretty much the same about them. I’m even glad she hasn’t been interested, up to now, in the Medieval period, except out in Byzantium, because it means we can learn from each other.

Lydia doesn’t go to these clubs alone, as I discovered today. I was working late (to avoid going home to those chores) when two girls with white faces and black hair, eyebrows, lipstick and clothes arrived to meet her. Lydia introduced us, after offering once again to model her outfit now that we were alone, and the couple examined me as though I was a museum specimen, which to them I probably am. When I declined Lydia’s modelling opportunity, all three giggled and left for the ladies’ washroom whispering and glancing back at me. Then, the other two returned and flashed open their coats at me before scampering off to re-join Lydia. Their outfits were also in contravention of our policy and very revealing so I tut-tutted, lecturing them like a stern but kindly schoolmaster and it was surprisingly sexy. Despite all appearances, and a lifetime of being trampled on, could it be that I’m really the kind of masterful domineering man that women fall for after all?

Lance is still unable to do chores so I had to do his when I got home. If I don’t, I’ll never be allowed back into the family. Maybe I should have gone to the Club and claimed I’d worked late.

This evening, on our Internet Provider’s transition site homepage, is a dire warning of what will happen if I’m not ‘transitioned’ by December 31st. Attached to the warning is a button that says, ‘check your settings NOW to see if you are ready’ or words to that effect? I decided, as I’m up and running, I must be ready and, foolishly, pressed the button. I lost both my Internet and e-mail. Called the Help Line, which was busy answering calls from all the other people who pushed the button. I wish I’d kept the string of letters and dots I got from them last time.

Weight: minus 1 lb. I'm heading in the right direction, at last. I expect it’s the stress. That’s the secret to being skinny all your life, be twitchy nervous.

December 2001:

Merry Christmas -- Bah! Humbug.

January 2002: Happy New Year -- I hope.

February 2002: Love is in the air.

March 2002: Goodbye is such sweet sorrow.

April 2002: Starts and ends with a fool

May 2002: May blossom -- yet

June 2002: World Cup runneth over and over and…

July 2002: Canada Day and the last Lakelady family day out

August 2002:

September 2002: Final Days and Final, Final Words

Epilogue

End of our sample!

You can continue reading the rest of Paul’s book by clicking the link below of your favorite bookstore!

iBooks

Amazon

Amazon.ca

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com.au

Smashwords.com

Barnes and Noble.com

Order the paperback copy

KOBO BOOKS

Author Bio:

Paul James grew tired of waiting for a literary agent or publisher to snap up his masterpiece so he began posting excerpts on social media and, when the reaction to those snippets was good, he published it himself (well, with a little help from his friends). He hopes you enjoy reading it as much as he enjoyed writing it.

Despite years of schooling and work in middle management, Paul can still see the funnier side of life. As well, living in central Canada with his wife and with the experience of raising two now grown-up and moved-out kids, he feels he can see both sides of any question – so much so that sometimes he can’t tell one side from the other.

Paul feels he understands enough of the English-speaking world’s concerns to comment on that in his writing because (1) he and his wife moved to Canada from Britain at a middling age and they still visit English family and friends frequently, (2) he has visited the USA a lot through vacations, his work and his children going to university there, and (3) through work and family visits, he has spent many months in Australia.

When Paul isn’t writing, he can be found reading, traveling, or outdoors with a camera looking to capture amazing images of landscapes and wildlife.

Visit Paul's Facebook page here:

Paul James

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1004838068

Visit Paul's Twitter here:

Paul James

https://twitter.com/pauljames953