Week 32. I was thinking back to Grade 9 the other day and the strange early cognitive aptitude test we all took courtesy of the hapless, high school Guidance Dept. It involved a multipage tool and required us to push a pin through circles adjacent to key words of interest. The results were then supposedly compiled through some early version computer – a modest step above the abacus, no doubt – which then spit out a result identifying what you should consider as a future career. I was thinking about this the other day because my identified career was Movie Director. No, really. And I realized this week that I want to be a movie director – in real life – just so:
When the provincial Fiscal Accountability Office starts to say, as it did this week: “A second lockdown owing to the COVID-19 pandemic could slow the province’s economic recovery”,
And when the spineless, as well as resume-less, Prime Minister starts to announce that he “intends to fight China’s coercive diplomacy” and that its use of massive Uighur concentration camps, and arbitrary arrests and repression in Hong Kong “is not a particularly productive path”,
And when Google starts to trumpet that it has determined that QAnon postings "appear to have conspiracy theory content used to justify real-world violence". Which I suppose qualifies as a “Q-tip”,
I can shout “CUT”. And they actually have to stop. Immediately.
The aptly named “Dope sheet” (which, for those unfamiliar with on-set jargon, is a list of scenes that have already been filmed, usually compiled by the assistant cameraman) of such drivel is already far too long. And someone has to put a stop to it.
But, as Trump has never been heard to say: ”Enough about me”.
Otherwise, in real life, the family was coincidentally all together last night. Which doesn’t happen that often. So we celebrated - in the usual ‘in the pandemic bubble’ fashion - by having a young man on a bicycle deliver half of an order of food we placed and then retiring to the basement to watch ALONE, a very disturbing movie about a woman stalked and kidnapped by a man who, because it is 2020, is listed in the credits only as “Man”. The woman, because it is 2020, turns on her much larger, stronger and better-armed adversary and ultimately beats him to death with a tire iron.
But equal opportunity for women and girl power is, for once, not the point of Elder Advice.
What is, and what I found most disturbing, was hearing my offspring comment on the errors being made – “That makes no sense” “For god’s sake, how sloppy is this guy?” “What she should have done there is …….. “Is he trying to get caught?” There was altogether too much chatter about how to commit murder, properly.
The concern I have expressed since Week 1’s Elder Advice spiked. How long will it be before they start collecting the cinder blocks, rope and a tarp?
I looked around nervously during the credit roll, hoping to see a notice like: “No 65 year old + men were harmed as a result of the making of this movie.”
I tried to comfort myself with the thought that, surely, Lisa wouldn’t let the children finish me off. She would do it herself - because that woman takes her marriage vows seriously. And I figure that, even in my depleted pandemic condition, I can still take her.
But just in case, please don’t believe the story you hear when the pandemic ends. When everyone comes out, blinking, into the broad sunlit uplands, and you note my absence: “Oh, right, Tim – well, he passed unexpectedly and we just had a small, family-only service. COVID – what else could we do?"
And that’s a Wrap.