Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Baguley 4 Mayor...of Farmville!

Municipal elections are coming up! Who is excited?

OK, so it's not a terribly exciting topic. But I want to talk about how my vote was swayed by a good deed.

I decided early on NOT to vote for Barb Baguley for Mayor. She's run and lost before, and last time there was a vicious rumour that she was on board with the idea that Innisfil should become a part of Barrie. But the thing that cemented my plans to NOT vote for her was simply her signage:

"Baguley 4 Mayor" with a lovely, giant, airbrushed of her looking like a corpse. I've seen much nicer air brushing jobs on "Six Feet Under" reruns. And I'm sorry, but when a person is running for political office, any printed literature sent out should act as a resume. Would you ever intentionally misprint a word on your resume? I'm not sure whether she saved two cents per sign by cutting two characters on each one, or if she thought replacing the word "for" with the number would come across as trendy. This is not twitter, Barb Baguley. You're not sending a text message. If you were running for Mayor of Farmville, you might have some kind of reasonable campaign here.

So, by default I decided to vote for Gord Wauchope (even though his wife is a total cow. She was the worst teacher I ever had, back is grades two and three.)

I have a friend who has diabetes. Last week he was about half an hour away from home without his medication. With no warning, he found himself with a big medical emergency. His blood sugar dropped to a dangerous level, and he needed his meds right away. He asked a police officer for help and she refused him. He began to panic.

Gord Wauchope happened to drive by at just the right time. He pulled over and picked up my friend, and then took him home to his medicine. The next day I requested a Gord Wauchope for Mayor lawn sign.

My vote is concrete now. Yay for good deeds!

Monday, September 20, 2010

There's a guy in Stroud who really pisses me off.

He's a mechanic, which automatically makes him crooked. My Dad is probably the only honest mechanic in the world, but because I don't want to bother him every time any little thing goes wrong with my vehicle, I use this guy in stroud sometimes. Let's call him Mr Swindler.

Mr Swindler attends church with my mother in law, and he's got the Sandy Cove market cornered. All the old folks think he gives them a GREAT deal on car repairs.

This morning I took my Caravan in to Mr Swindler's garage to have a tail light and a head light fixed. He had known I was coming. I called him Friday and he said he'd be totally free to work on the car Monday. As soon as I got there he explained the complex procedure such a job entails. Of course fixing a seized lock is the single most difficult thing that could ever be done by anyone. EVER! Seriously, brain surgeons think they have it rough! Brain surgery is a WALK IN THE PARK compared to the delicate business of freeing a seized van hatch! Then he told me that the seized lock was entirely my fault and that it would take all day to fix. Fixing it would require cutting a panel away with a saw and replacing it, of course. So I went across the street to Tim Hortons and grabbed a coffee.

I've never been to Saskatchewan, but I imagine that it looks a LOT like Stroud. Stroud is the land that time forgot. All corn fields and highway. Aside from the Tim Hortons and the KFC, there's not much of anything around. There hasn't even been a single house built for the past 30 years. It's really...odd. Not a place you want to be stranded with no escape. So I got on the GO bus and went to Barrie. (I haven't been on a bus since I was about seventeen. It was an odd little adventure).

Anyway, I spent the day in Barrie and arrived back in Stroud to check on my car at 2:30.

Long story short: Mr Swindler told me that he was waiting for a part that was accidentally delivered to Midland, and it would be another hour before my car would be ready. I told him to put the car back together and I'd be on my way. In the five and a half hours between the time I dropped it off and the time I picked it up, he'd managed to change a lightbulb in the headlight.

I won't be going to him again. Today I came to the concrete conclusion that he's incompetent, and probably scamming the old people of Sandy Cove. I've never payed him less than I'd expect to pay at a proper business, and his service is terrible. He's a drama queen who thinks he's the freaking Lone Ranger, bailing people out of terrible trouble with his amazing light bulb changing skillz.

Loser.