Living Retired #200- June 19, 2017
ONTARIO DRINKERS HAVE THE SHAKES
Note to Wolf Blitzer…
Did you not read the memo??
Last week the words on the television screen said, ‘DEVELOPING NEWS’: Dennis Rodman is travelling to North Korea and may show his tattoos and ear piercings to Kim Jong-un and play a little one on one basketball.
But you aren’t reporting what’s happening here in Ontario…
The people who sell us our alcohol may be going on strike! You heard me right: we may not be able to buy booze!
Now if this isn’t ‘DEVELOPING NEWS’ or even ‘BREAKING NEWS’ I don’t what is?
Wolf, imagine what this could mean!
14-million people live in Ontario. That’s a lot of people walking around in toques, saying ‘Eh’ going through alcohol withdrawal. Not a pretty picture.
But it gets worse…
Organizers of the high school proms are beside themselves: a strike could make it difficult for underage drinkers to stock up for their graduation parties!
Emergency meetings of Boards of Education have been called. They are developing plans to have home room monitors drive across to Buffalo New York to stock up at ABC liquor outlets!
One education administrator isn’t convinced it’s the correct thing to do though…
“Our high school students exclusively drink Canadian beer which has higher alcoholic content. I’m not sure we want our kids puking and spewing watered-down American beer out their nose in the back seats of their parents cars.”
Wolf, I’m not sure you know, but here in Ontario we have very stringent labour laws: the government passed legislation that demands every union must support their members whenever there is a strike and provide them with a metal oil drum.
These oil drums can be bad for the strikers health…
After walking around in circles for twelve hours a day for three weeks, picketers can become light-headed. Before you know it they may trip over their placard sign and do a face plant in the oil drum which is burning railway ties soaked in some sort of obnoxious smelling chemical.
To add insult to injury: the ambulance may not be able to help, because another labour law says that striking workers must walk at a snails pace around any vehicle that is trying to cross the picket line.
When I learned that the sale of liquor in Ontario may be in jeopardy because of a strike, I did what any mature baby boomer would do: I made an appointment with a medical professional to seek counselling for withdrawal! Ha. Ha. Ha. Just kidding. Sort of.
The reason a strike by the workers who sell alcohol in Ontario would be unfortunate– okay, downright frickin’ unbearable!– is because the sale of alcohol in Ontario is controlled by the government. So if they’re on strike, we can’t drink!
Unlike Trump who says one thing and then does something all together different, many years ago our government actually followed through with what they said they were going to do, which was to mandate that alcohol could only be sold at stores they owned.
Initially, these stores were known as the Liquor Control Board of Ontario– the LCBO. The government controlled everything– which products to sell, what the price would be, and how much tax to gouge! It was sort of like the States has organized crime, while Ontario had the LCBO.
But then the government decided to bring the sale of alcohol into the, oh let’s say, 17th century.
The politicians hired their cronies to conduct research. The key finding was they discovered that Ontarian’s had difficulty keeping the letters L C B O in the correct order on our shopping lists. We kept driving around looking for the BOCL store– which led to slower sales of brands such as Baby Duck.
Now I know many American readers are saying, “Gary, so you’re telling me that in Ontario you can’t just buy your booze at a grocery store, a gas station, a variety store, or at stores the size of Rhode Island? Next you’re going to say something silly like you sell milk in 4 litre bags!”
As the strike deadline is approaching Ontario liquor drinkers are becoming, well, let’s just say ‘edgy.’ Now don’t come to the conclusion that we are all just a bunch of people who drink to excess and order double- double coffee at Tim Hortons. We are actually quite ingenious…
We are now buying tickets to baseball games– where we can sit with thousands of our closest friends in stadiums drinking watered-down drinks at inflated prices. It’s sort of like being at an island resort, but without the sand.
So Wolf. Next time one of those commercials for reverse mortgages comes on, why don’t you tell your producers to jump into one of their satellite news trucks and drive up to Ontario?
Just be sure to bring your own booze.
Oh yeah. And stock up on cheap gas before you cross the border.
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Gary Chalk, a retired Canadian baby boomer is a member of Humor Writers of America. Each week 3,000 people across North America read Living Retired. To unsubscribe or to book Gary’s keynote presentation ‘I Don’t Have Wrinkles, I Have Laugh Lines’ visit https://livingretired.press
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