It's Always Darkest Before You Turn On The Light

I was walking down the street - which I highly recommend if you intend getting from one place to another - when I noticed a sign outside a store which read "Discount For Seniors And The Military."  I was immediately struck by lightning.  No, wait, that was a dream I had.  I was immediately struck by how progressive the Canadian Army was. They not only welcomed little gay people into their ranks, they were now accepting seniors!  What an innovative idea!  I realized this was a revolutionary approach to ending all conflicts.   You form an elite unit of senior citizens - they really should have their own distinct regiment - maybe the Pension Platoon or the Senior Squad - and place them on the front lines of battle.  As older people usually get up early, an attack at dawn is a piece of cake.  Then, when the order to charge is given, they stroll across no man's land pushing their walkers, stop halfway for a quick nap before knitting a scarf for th...

 I was up bright and early this morning as I had an appointment with the doctor to establish the cause of certain pain in my lower back (read bum).  After much poking and prodding, the doctor said "Can you PLEASE stop playing with my medical equipment and lie down on the bed?"  In my own defence, I argued that I had once entertained dreams of becoming a medical practitioner and so had a professional right to examine the various devices which were lying about.  The doctor, a stern-looking woman who would not have been out of place in a high security prison ward, was not amused.  She proceeded to examine me by pulling and pushing my body into various positions which I was sure left me qualified to apply to a circus as a contortionist.   Finally, she informed me that I have sciatica, pain affecting the back, hip, and outer side of the leg, caused by compression of a spinal nerve root in the lower back, often owing to degeneration of an intervertebral disk...

My hairstylist, or as I like to call her, 'Escaped mental patient #28 - If spotted do not engage but contact the police immediately', recently gave me a haircut that I can only assume is known in hairdressing circles as 'the bucket head'.  This hairstyle, I am convinced, was popular in the ranks of Oliver Cromwell's army and gave them their now infamous moniker of 'roundheads'.  In fact, I'm prepared to bet that if Cromwell was alive today he'd be extremely old. But back to me.  A small child once commented to me "I like you because your hair looks like a mushroom".  I think that just about says it all.  My daughter always asks me (through the bathroom door as I'm in there, post haircut, crying into the toilet and wondering if I might get away with wrapping the shower curtain around my head and pretending to be a Muslim) "Why do you keep going back to the same hair stylist?"  And I reply that I don't know.  That it's p...

A wealthy man fails to win the love of his life because he never shuts up Three animal friends, Mole, Ratty and Badger,  try to help their friend Mr. Toad stop farting in bed A man tries to sell two kittens who are  shredding his furniture A mad scientist creates an artificial man from pieces of corpses but keeps complaining that it's not what he had in mind A young man, Monty, throws a disco party  and attempts to control the number of people  who show up Three rowdy friends show up at a bar after closing and demand drinks During Pride Month, a writer circumnavigates the globe with a large group of lesbians         A teenager gets grounded for having a messy room A man buys a bird who eats him out of house and home A young orphan boy wanders the streets of Dickensian London goosing people

  I was in a shop the other day and when I got to the cash desk to pay (as opposed to sticking the item under my shirt and legging it out the door), the cashier said “You get the seniors’ discount today.” I turned around assuming he was talking to some old bag who was standing behind me and was horrified, nay OUTRAGED, to discover that HE WAS TALKING TO ME!!!  The NERVE! I WAS THE OLD BAG!!!  In a pathetic attempt to save face, I said “No thanks.  I’m 35.”  Well, it took me about an hour to finally pay him because his co-workers had to lift him off the floor where he had fallen in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.     Now, in my Irish days I’d have been over that counter in a trice and beaten the living snot out of him and left him in a semi-conscious state, never again to utter those immortal words “You get the seniors’ discount today."  In fact, I’d have reduced him to such a pathetic state that the mere mention of a senior would have sent...

  The other night I opened the fridge and discovered it was emptier than a hermit's address book.  Realizing that going without a cup of tea might well result in my taking hostages, I glanced at the clock and, noticing that I had ten minutes before the store across the street closed, I made the momentous decision to make a mad dash for a carton of milk. It was almost ten o'clock and I was in my pajamas but it was a nice night and, as I said, the store was only across the street and the window for getting my milk was closing, so I headed out in my jammies.  (They're nice jammies - they have cows on them.) I made it to the shop, purchased my milk and headed home,  I was standing on the corner, waiting for the traffic lights to change, when suddenly two large raccoons emerged from the nearby bushes and one of them made a mad dash across the road, causing cars to screech to a halt or blast horns at other cars and almost cause a multi-car pile-up. The other raccoon stood...

  I was at the airport excitedly heading off to parts unknown - I was heading for the gate for New York but I had spilled ketchup on my ticket and tried to rub it off so it now looked like it said that I was going to Eww Yuck, so I literally didn't know where I'd end up. I had a bottle of water in my bag which I forgot about until it went through the x-ray machine and all kinds of alarms went off.  The airport went into a stage 5 lockdown, all entrances and exits were sealed off, INTERPOL was notified, Seal Team 6 were en route, and a very official-looking security officer held up my bag and asked "Who owns this?"  I said "I do," and he gestured for me to step out of the line-up.   Now, that wasn't a good idea on his part because there's nothing I hate more than the gesture-instead-of-a-verbal-request approach, so we were off to a bad start right out of the gate, as it were. I strolled over to where he was standing holding up my bag like it was a tic...