PATRICK MCVAY

If I were Pope, the first thing I’d do is fight for normalized relations with the people who practice the Cult of the Easter Bunny. Although my own Catholic upbringing strongly emphasized Jesus over the Easter Bunny, I was an open-minded young lad and was able to appreciate how some people could drink in the stories of the mystical rabbit and his mysterious workings. Who was I to say that the baskets filled with chocolate lops and cottontails and little chocolate eggs that resembled hare scat weren’t actually filled by a rabbit? Honestly, could I be 100% certain that the absurd myths that were intoxicating believers in Bunnyism were completely impossible?

Oh, great, now I’ve gone and tipped my hand. For half a second I had you thinking that I was actually willing to lend legitimacy to the Easter Bunny, such that if I ever became Pope (which, when I was a really young child, was still a possibility) I’d be willing to spend large chunks of my free time lobbying political leaders to seek common ground between us in the mainstream and the deranged psychopaths who perpetrate this annual farce of Bunny worship.

Imagine what you have to get your head around to believe in the Easter Bunny: a large (one assumes, given all the booty delivered) rabbit hops around and somehow penetrates through the several layers of security around your home, (via, what, magic?), and then farts out little brown eggs into a basket.

And here’s what I find most troubling: you allow your children to consume the little brown pellets they find.

Don’t you see the ridiculousness of this?

Sometimes, I worry for you and your decision making skills.

Back in the day, I had a girlfriend who moved in with three other people into a new construction townhouse after we graduated college. I’d visit frequently, making a pest of myself and becoming best friends with one of her roommates (Roy!), making me an even more frequent visitor.

Consequently, I got to know the landlord, who always seemed to be hanging around, just like I was. This particular landlord, a fella named Jimmy Georges, possessed a first rate Boston accent. I mean this guy should be in the hall of fame of Boston accents. I’d been living in the area long enough to have encountered the Boston accent many times each day, but I had never heard it as perfectly rendered as when spoken by Jimmy Georges.

Anyway, there I was one day when Jimmy Georges happened to be at the apartment, caulking something or collecting a rent check or whatever, and I asked him about an oddity of the apartment: why was there a forlorn-looking countertop and sink out there in the living room? I was a young, green newcomer to “the big city” from a smallish town; to me, it seemed like an architectural boner. So Jimmy Georges explained, “It’s a wet bah.”

A wet bar? I know you think that a high-class person such as myself would have had several wet bars in his childhood manse, but I had never actually heard of such a thing. I was informed that a wet bar is where you make the drinks.

How embarrassing! I was known at that time for making drinks, or at least for drinking the drinks that other people made, so for me to display such social unawareness about a drinking matter cast me in a totally different light to the drinking public.

At that moment, I decided I would never suffer such embarrassment again. One day, I would have my very own wet bar. It might take my becoming a captain of industry, or maybe just a wet bar salesman with easy access to factory seconds, but one way or another I was going to be making drinks in my living/dining area.

Still waiting for my big wet bar sales job opportunity.

Imagine what I might made of my life if only I had been given a decent pair of curling shoes as a child. That I’ve been able to get this far without such footwear illustrates my ability to overcome obstacles, on and off the ice. I’m not saying it’s the equivalent of Pele having to kick around a rolled up sock filled with rags instead of a proper soccer ball during his childhood, but it’s pretty close. Both of us had to play the cards we were dealt, and both learned to overcome the deficits we were saddled with.

So, sure, Pele and I are alike. He has often noted, in his own blog, that we’re kindred spirits. Nice guy. But here’s one way we’re actually not alike: he’s never won the famous Corn Hole tournament on my street. And I have. As a rookie. With very little training and while drinking beer.

I don’t want to claim that he hasn’t won because he’s focused solely on his footwork, which gets you only so far in Corn Hole, but let’s just say that I kept my footwork to a minimum, and I won. And he didn’t.

Not so long ago, I declared publicly via soapbox rantings in the town square that I would no longer plan mid-winter vacations. Too unreliable, I announced to the gathering throngs, what with the vagaries of the weather.

I was soon pressed for details. All midwinter vacations? Does that count Christmas in New York? The skepticism was palpable (fueled by the fake news media). People began to get restless. Worried that I might be pelted by rotten tomatoes, I lifted my bullhorn and clarified, as the crowds around me swelled: specifically, I would no longer plan trips to warm, beachfront destinations between winter solstice and spring equinox. After some inelegant bursts of skeptical laughter and a couple of outright guffaws from the rather large audience (“hasn’t he been to, like, Turks and Caicos?”), I explained further: winter escapes involve planes, which are notorious for failing to liftoff during snow storms. I had once been foiled by just such a scenario, confounding an otherwise perfect scheme to repair to the Big Island of Hawaii in the middle of February. Plus, what if it’s cool and cloudy during your whole beachfront trip, which happened one winter vacation in allegedly sunny Florida? No, I’m sorry, never again!

The multitudes now sat peacefully and hung intently on my every word, as I explained how this year I had planned a vacation to a winter destination instead. Weather would be no match for our four-wheel drive vehicle. There were cheers. Bring on the snow! Bring on the cold!

That’s not snow

Or, bring on the rain and fog. Maybe you’ve never skied in rain and fog, but you’ve driven in it and understand: since you can’t see what’s right in front of you, you’re forced to travel super slowly. Travelling really slowly is not why people ski. And it’s also not so fun to ski when you’re wet.

I would insert here an apropos rant about climate change, but who wants to hear a rant about global warming by a person lamenting the loss of his white-person leisure activity? Better to lament the suffering of many impoverished people the world over whose low-lying shacks will be destroyed by the rising tides.

Looking to hear from an impoverished resident of a low-lying country who blogs about climate change from his/her shack.