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speakup

Whew! I have now planned all the great and wonderful things I am going to do this spring, which I notice has finally arrived. It took a long, long time and now everything is organized and studied. All the fact-finding is done. It's all down on paper. I figured out how long it's going to take me to prune my apple trees, rake up the yards, clean out my workshop, deal with tires and other vehicle issues, and do I ever feel feel as if I've accomplished something! The only thing is, looking at the pages of words, I realized I would never have had time to do all that. I crumpled up the sheets and put them in the wood stove. Ambition is one thing, but nonsense is another.

I see my dog Kezman as a possible role model (Or roll model - he IS a dog) for those of us who aren't ambitious. He doesn't spend a whole lot of time fussing over details, but lives by the Nike Code: "Just do it".

You don't see Kezman, when he wants to chase a rabbit, say to himself: "I had better do a quality control analysis and flow chart on whether it's more advantageous to chase that rabbit or to lie on the ground here." He chases the rabbit. None of this talking about 'parameters' and ‘matrixes' and ‘let's call a consulting firm'. He chases the rabbit.

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One day last week I was lying back in my LazyBoy chair and feeling ashamed and guilty at being such a lazy boy. I twitched a bit and my hand happened to be near the TV remote control. On came a program called ‘It's Not Your Fault'. A psychologist named Raynald MacAfinee was saying that none of us is to blame for the way we are. It's not our fault - everyone else's but not ours.

Are you a bank robber? Mummy probably didn't give you any money when you were a kid so you turned to a life of crime. If you're an axe-murderer, or, worse, a bagpiper, it was probably because your father drank excessive amounts of Scotch.

IS there an excessive amount of Scotch?

The last thing Raynald said before my finger twitched again - the most exercise I got all that day - was that people aren't really lazy, they're just ‘unmotivated' for the task at hand. "That's me," I thought as the Sandman threw a shovelful of sleepy sand in my eyes, "Unmotivated". Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

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Flug and his friend Erick from Hamilton stopped by the other day and we got into a meaningful dialogue (as it were) about the tricks of the trade of car selling. For that is Erick's trade, he sells from a lot just off Kenilworth and is considered one of the best around, to judge by the Aston Martin he drives.

I soon got the idea of just how a pro goes about his job. He uses different approaches for different people. Here are some examples of what he would be saying to himself as different personality types come in:

YUPPIE: "I should call Fred to shine up some Volvos. Then I'll keep the guy busy while Fred puts on some natural fibre seatcovers and casually stows a box of real meuslix in the glove compartment. A complimentary cell phone would cell this car. C-E-L-L, get it? Oh, yes, and I could give him a drink of Perrier water while we "dialogue". We could even do lunch.

FARMER: Hmmm. It's been a bad year for farmers. I don't really know that of course, but one is fairly safe in saying such a thing to a farmer. I better get Fred to put an extra shine on those Mercedes (Mercedeses?) out back.

MINISTER: Now let me see...what kind of car would appeal? I've got it! A Peugot! Pew-jo, get it? Never mind, that Chev Cavalier is just the thing. Lots of room in the back for hymn books and lists of people who don't attend church.

SCHOOLTEACHER: I'll say this car here was driven by an elderly schoolteacher only on weekends. (The reason being, her husband drove it back and forth to Halifax during the week.) On second thought, I better not tell a schoolteacher that the car was owned by another schoolteacher. Better say pipefitter or axe murderer, but not a bagpiper.

NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST: He's too cheap to buy a car; he's probably here to borrow money.

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Bob's website: http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/lafrance/index.htm