The Oakville Pietà

Last Thursday, Cate and I did a suburban Value Village run. Enroute, we talked about our children. Seasoned thrifters, we arrive then separate. I head over to men’s suiting where a mother and son are shopping. He’s more young man than boy, and dark like Dan. His mother, further up the rack, wore a hijab. A hunt for a graduation suit. I culled my way to the lady.

“Mama?” Kind, sweet, slightly anxious. A voice like my son. She and I turned towards him at the same time. Twin Pavlovian responses. And right there, I cried for a thousand mothers.

Inspired by Gaza, Kyiv, San’an, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles. 

Vintage find from LimArtSculpture.

To the Bitter End

Some years ago, I watched one of those human-interest stories with which (after doling on the day’s many disasters) they close newscasts. It was about an old man who’d run a weekly marathon for twenty years. It was inspiring—until the final scene, where he was shown setting off on a practice run before his next event. He looked like hell. Arthritic, tentative, obviously in pain: all that impact, all that wear-and-tear on his joints and back. Life takes its toll.

     Sometimes I think of him, especially when (like today) someone asks me, “Are you limping?” My answer: “Not consciously.” 

Inspired by Frog in Pot. Image from a video by Aquila Chrysaetos.

Frog in Pot

Like a frog unaware it’s boiling to death because the water is heated incrementally, most days I’m only vaguely aware of my body’s slow disintegration. Except when I woke up last Thursday with excruciating knee pain. People asked: “what happened?” Beats me. I don’t remember doing anything out of the ordinary. I was just living. Medical tests will tell me if it’s something mendable like a meniscus tear, or a new norm like arthritis—a level of background pain I’ll get used to and then live in denial about. Nothing to see here, just a frog boiling in a pot.

Inspired by One Foot In and Man Door Hand Hook Car Door. Image by Shutterstock AI.

One Foot In

I spent the winter working with a bunch of old men on either side of 80, pounding in election signs and pulling them up—hard manual work, especially in the cold. They’ve had heart scares and cancer. One once almost died from a stomach bleed—twice!

And yet they ran circles round me, the whinging 63½-year-old who in just the last week, lost a filling in my back tooth, burned my arm on the oven rack, and banged up my foot so badly it couldn’t have hurt more had I stubbed my poor pinky toe on my very own grave.

Inspired by Man Door Hand Hook Car Door. Image by the Meta AI.

Man Door Hand Hook Car Door

I look in the mirror and see my mother. Well, I see her hands. Boney, blue veined and shadow-puppeting Groucho Marx with a tube of red lipstick held between two stiff fingers and an opposable thumb. Two broken rings and a wonkey index tell tales of a childhood knuckle-cracking habit, leash training Huskies, and that time I shut my hand in Skiz’s car door. They’re certainly not pretty and are my version of the portrait in the attic. I hear that cosmetic surgeons can take fat out of your ass and inject it into the tops of your hands. High-five.

Inspired by Tuesday’s Manicure. Knit Night photo by Laurie.

When Winning is Everything (Econ 100 Concluded)

Assume one country is better at producing a particular “good” than others because of its “factor endowments,” or its use of technology. In such a world, all countries would benefit if they produced what they produce best, and traded for goods that others are better at making. The theory of “comparative advantage” holds that the “gains from trade” make all nations better off—that fair trade is win-win. Recently, another scheme has emerged, whereby some countries think others should be their “bitches.” This beggar-thy-neighbour, win/lose approach is not supported by economic theory—but it’s not really about economics, is it? 

Last of a 3-part drabble degree program in economics that started with Economics 100 and continued with Inequality. Graduates may collect their diploma by submitting 1 Bitcoin to the Exquisite Corpse Grift Endowment Fund. Graph by Cmglee; AI image uncredited on Substack.