The Future and Why We Should Avoid It

by Scott Feschuk

  Wait, so now the juice is the worst thing about camp? Does that mean the clogged “tolet” actually isn’t so bad? Keep your story straight, kid.

  We’re fairly sure James actually loves his camp. How couldn’t he? It’s a terrific place, the staff seem amazing and all day he gets to do fun stuff like canoeing, windsurfing and measuring the height of human excrement above a toilet’s water line. Memories that will last a lifetime, I tell you.

  Like many parents, we try to expose our kids to adventures better and more memorable than the ones we had. As a boy, I never spent more than four days away at camp, possibly because a full week inside the heavy, cruel canvas tents of the time would have resulted in dozens of young Cub Scouts being roasted in their own juices.

  Those awful tents! And I have other fond memories of Cub camp, such as (a) leaving, and (b) never coming back. The outhouse was so vile that most kids tried to hold off from using it for as long as possible. I went so far as to hold off from using it for longer than possible and wound up with a pair of soiled underwear—which I removed and, embarrassed, hurled into the nearby ravine. Genius! No camper or counsellor shall ever learn my secret shame! It was only with the benefit of hindsight that I realized I first should have removed the iron-on label that read “Feschuk.”

  PS By the way 30/56 main course meals here are chiken. Chiken wings chiken fingers chiken wraps chiken soup chiken salad. So when I come home please no chiken.

  First morning he’s home, I’m waking this kid with a bell and giving him a breakfast of chiken breast, chiken flakes and chiken juice. Also, a dictionary.

  Hockey Parents I: Meet the Hockey Parents

  Every September a new wave of little kids and their parents experience minor hockey. The boys and girls don’t need any help having fun. As for Mom and Dad, a little fair warning: here’s a guide to some of the parents you can expect to encounter over the next several winters.

  “Talks Only about His Own Kid” Dad: This plentiful specimen of parent will gleefully analyze for you his child’s every pass, shot, mood swing, haircut, Tweet and cereal preference. Come February, he still won’t know the names of half the other kids on the team. You can spot him easily because he’s the only dad keeping a plus-minus stat for a six-year-old.

  “Complains about Ice Time” Dad: This father can often be found insisting that the team would have triumphed if only his child hadn’t been shortchanged by twenty-three seconds there in the second period.

  “Bag of Noisemakers” Mom: Most teams have a parent who arrives at games with an array of horns and whistles. This is tolerable, perhaps even desirable. The problem? It opens the door to “Cowbell” Dad. And here’s the thing about Cowbell Dad: he went to the trouble of bringing the cowbell, so there’s no way he’s going to hit that thing only after a goal. Nope, he’s also going to celebrate good saves, decent passes, kids who manage to stay upright and hot moms who walk past. Come November, police will find you smiling over the corpse of Cowbell Dad, and the only thought in your head will be: “It was worth it.”

  “Berates His Kid in Front of Everyone” Dad: You won’t spend too long in organized hockey before you witness a parent dressing down his child in public. We’ve all seen it and silently imagined pressing the father’s face against a skate sharpener. Of course, decent parents know the best way to respond to a child’s subpar outing at the rink is to put an arm around your kid, tell him a joke in the parking lot and when you get him in the car, that’s when you make him cry.

  “Pretends Not to Be an Intense Hockey Parent but Is One” Dad: This rare breed pokes fun at the stereotypical hockey parent while simultaneously displaying all the characteristics of one. By mid-season, parents will linger in the lobby while he finds a seat—so they can all sit very far away from him.

  “An Injustice Has Been Perpetrated on My Child” Dad: Many teams will have a kid who is assessed way more penalties and even kicked out of games. The parent of this child will be unable to see what is obvious to others. How could they eject my boy? It was clearly an accident that his stick repeatedly penetrated that other kid’s spleen!

  “Everything Reminds Him of When He Played Hockey” Dad: Mark his words—he could have easily made the National Hockey League if only it weren’t for his bad luck, his wonky knee and a scouting establishment that conspired against guys who were 5 foot 5 and 130 pounds.

  “Take the Body” Dad: If your child goes on to play competitive hockey, he or she will be introduced to body contact, which totally makes sense at a time when some thirteen-year-olds are 6 feet and 160 pounds and others weigh the same as a throw pillow. What could possibly go wrong? In any event, there will be a parent who shouts “Take the body!” whenever two players come within 65 feet of one another. Women will regard him with disdain.

  “Refuses to Learn Anything about Hockey” Mom: After several hundred hours spent in cold arenas, this mother still doesn’t understand what icing is. She will believe, mistakenly, that this is charming.

  “Team Strategy” Dad: Here’s a guy who can be relied on to provide instant analysis after every game, complete with a long list of things the coach ought to be doing. He will speak of “shaking up the lines” and “changing the game plan.” He will fail to accept that it is futile to plot strategy for any hockey team whose players still wave at their parents from the ice.

  Happily, there will be many parents along the way who fit into none of these categories. You will want to sit with them, socialize with them. Sometimes, you will want to make fun of other parents with them. This too is Canada’s national sport.

  The Despair of Winter II: The Seven Stages of Winter

  Anticipation. As the long, hot summer surrenders to the first hint of an autumn breeze, many of us experience a small thrill: winter is on its way, bringing relief from the heat and promising the many splendours that accompany the most Canadian of seasons. We envision snow-flecked landscapes, ice-covered ponds and joyful Christmas choirs. Digging deep into the closet, we gaze fondly upon our parkas and mitts. We dream of frosty adventures ahead.

  Despair. The first cruel winds of November cut through us and we pretty much want to fall down and die right there. Three days of hostile muttering ensue.

  Sarcasm. A huge December snowfall—awesome! And maybe a little freezing rain in there because THAT WOULD BE PLEASANT. Wake up and there’s three feet of snow in the driveway—and hey, great, it’s the wet, slushy kind that weighs about a squillion pounds per shovelful and lays those of weak heart in their graves. Yay, winter! Just when we finally get it cleared—literally, just as we finish clearing it away—the plow pushes a huge drift back in front of the driveway. Thanks for that, buddy! And for the record, that could have been anyone’s snow shovel that flew through the air and struck the window of the plow’s cab. We only ran away because we were in the mood for some exercise.

  Rationalization. Typically this stage is triggered by an enjoyable day spent outdoors. We are imbued with the belief that we can not only survive winter but even learn to love it. We vow to plan more outings. We settle in for hot chocolate by the fireplace. We look out the window into the deep black of a winter’s night and we are content …

  Swearing … until we realize it’s only 4:35 PM. Sweet mother of @!%*#. It’s pitch black when we go to work! It’s pitch black when we come home from work! There’s more daylight in Das Boot. HUMANS WEREN’T MEANT TO LIVE LIKE THIS! Our stylish leather boots are salt-stained. The legs of our pants are salt-stained. Our will to live is salt-stained, and that’s not even possible. At work, the guy two cubicles over is wearing the same wool sweater for the third time this week. It smells like a wet ferret. And now we smell like a wet ferret. Morning comes and the ice on our windshield is thick, so thick, and we take our scraper and we just hammer on it and hammer on it until we crumble to the driveway, spent and weeping. Later, at Starbucks, we overhear some cheerful idiot saying the Inuit have dozens of ways of sayin
g “snow.” We tell him we’ve got hundreds of ways of saying “Shut the $@*# up.” The ensuing conversation with management centres on whether we’re banned from all Starbucks or just this one.

  Despair. It’s late February. The snowshoes we got for Christmas are still in their box. Communication among family members has devolved to a series of grunts, crude drawings and middle fingers. In this dark moment, a decision is made. The next time someone comes up to us and says “Cold enough for ya?” we are going to murder that person. Not secretly. Not with any foresight or planning. We are going to reach out with our bare hands and we are going to strangle the life out of that person right then and there, and if anyone tries to get in our way, we are going to murder them as well. Because. We. Just. Can’t. Take it. Anymore.

  Despair. The neighbours are back from their March-break trip to Florida. They’re all tanned and perky, and they sure seem eager to come over and tell us all about it—right up until they spot the barbed wire and land mines. They back away slowly. Spring is coming. It must be coming. But the nights still are long, and in our dreams we hear only the swish-swush snowsuit sound of the longest of the seasons.

  Golf

  For the whole of my adult life, I have had a love-hate relationship with the game of golf: I love me and it hates me.

  But no more, for I am giving it up. Let it be recorded in the pages of this book that I have played my last round, recorded my last triple bogey, and lied for the last time about it being a triple bogey when, let’s be honest, it took me five strokes just to get out of that sand trap. Fittingly, I am giving up golf “cold turkey,” which is what I’m told I resemble when I swing.

  Every spring now for more than two decades, I have pulled my clubs out of the basement, cleaned the cobwebs from the woods, scraped the dirt from the irons and attempted to straighten the shaft of the putter, bent theatrically the previous autumn after a three-footer for a five somehow became a nine-footer for an eight. Curse you, undulations!

  I am at peace with my decision. Never again will I experience the thrill of taking out a driver on the first hole and watching as my ball sails high, higher, before settling gently onto the ladies’ tee box. Not once more shall I, in search of a wayward shot, be obliged to march into woods or swamp or marsh or parking lot or that fairway two holes over or a pro shop. Nevermore shall I shank it, pull it, hook it, slice it, flub it, duff it, lose it left, lose it right, sky it, top it, worm-burn it or—most humiliating of all—just plain miss it.

  I have tried, at great cost to wallet and sanity, to become not lousy at golf. I have read books and watched internet tutorials. I have invested in pricey irons and massive drivers and hilarious pants. I have taken a number of lessons from a number of golf pros. One of them went to the trouble of videotaping my swing so we could view and analyze it together. I remember catching his expression out of the corner of my eye as the tape played—he had the look of a young child watching someone beat a baby panda to death with a baby koala.

  That was a dispiriting moment. I always figured I’d be one of those guys who conducted business out on the golf course, forging relationships that would pay dividends for years to come. But it’s surprisingly difficult to reach a handshake agreement when your would-be client is on the green in two and you’re wildly swinging your eight-iron to ward off snakes in the long grass.

  It’s hard to put a finger on my moment of greatest ignominy. At Banff, we teed it up one morning with a herd of elk grazing perhaps 120 yards down the fairway. The others in my group that day cleared the animals with ease. I hit one of them … softly, on two bounces. To this day, I am haunted by the casual, pitying look it gave me.

  Not long after, in the company of my father, I managed to lose twenty-three balls over the course of just seventeen holes. (I declined to play the eighteenth, using the time instead to write formal letters of apology to the inventors of golf, the country of Scotland and each woodland creature I’d concussed.) My dad, being a supportive and sensitive man, hardly ever mentioned my inglorious achievement to others, save for a few phone calls, a little bit of skywriting over downtown and that one-act play he wrote and performed.

  Many good golfers along the way tried to fix me. Some would start as soon as they witnessed me warming up on the driving range. Others did their best to hold off on dispensing advice for fear of coming off as chesty or condescending. But ultimately few could resist. What glory there would be in repairing a game so dire! Think about this, they would say, and when this didn’t work there would always be a that. But there was no fixing me. My ineptitude would remain a dense and enduring mystery, like how Mike Weir ever won the Masters.

  There are a few things I will miss about the game of golf: the beer cart, the beer-cart girl, the beer cart coming back. I will likely miss the way the sport fills so many daylight hours that will now have to be devoted to pastimes that don’t make me cry. I will certainly miss the occasion it gave me to channel all my energy and intelligence into crafting new and innovative curses.

  But my golf game is dead. It died surrounded by friends and family, who mocked it to its final breath. In lieu of flowers, please send a couple of badminton racquets. Maybe I’d be good at that.

  Greed

  In the aftermath of the last financial meltdown, a man wrote a book after quitting his lucrative job at the investment banking multinational Goldman Sachs because, he said, “It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off.” There was also the story of the trader who walked away from a huge salary because the industry had become “one hell of a mess” where the “culture was rotten.”

  Emboldened by these acts of courage, inspired by these elegies to what truly matters in life, I’ve decided to use this platform to speak directly to the soulless, faceless, money-grubbing financial firms of the world.

  Dear Super-Greedy, Ethically Barren Parasites of Pure Evil:

  Um, have you filled those two vacancies yet? Because I have searched deep within myself—especially the wallet part of myself—and I am totally willing to get paid a ridiculous amount of money to work for you. (Remember: ridiculous.)

  Don’t let all my jubilant high-fiving of random strangers fool you: this hasn’t been an easy decision. On one hand, I value the serenity of a balanced lifestyle, the nobility of honest work and the ability to sleep at night with a clear conscience. On the other hand, I want a boat.

  Sure, the guy who quit Goldman Sachs said “the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.” And yes, he said that “morally bankrupt” executives refer to their own clients as “Muppets”—and that unwitting investors are steered toward underperforming financial products for which the firm charges the largest possible fees. But in defence of Goldman Sachs: boat.

  The other guy, the stock trader, left for a job in print journalism (wave of the future!). He bemoaned the financial industry’s culture of entitlement, saying, “I once saw an investment banker become enraged when his plane ticket was booked economy instead of business class. ‘I’m not sitting in the back with the proletariat!’ he declared.” As a member of the proletariat, I feel compelled to point out: we don’t like flying with us either. It doesn’t make you special.

  A number of factors contributed to my selfless decision to make millions of dollars by selling something that makes my client millions of dollars despite neither of us knowing quite what that something is. A collateralized debt obligation? A handful of beans? With all the fine print, it’s hard to be sure.

  First and foremost, I have no qualms about foisting highly dubious products on an unsuspecting public. After all, I worked in politics.

  Second, I’d be a pretty awesome rich guy. True, others with absurd salaries have had a head start on becoming pretentious and unbearable—but I’d be willing to put in the work to catch up. In fact, for a couple of months now I’ve been emasculating sommeliers on my own time and overusing the word bro.

/>   Third, a massive salary couldn’t come too soon: it would give me the freedom to buy a fancy sports car and have a proper mid-life crisis. Pasting flame decals on my Volkswagen Golf just isn’t cutting it.

  Fourth, I have reached the point in life where it’s vitally important to me to spend less time with my family. Our young boys are growing up. They’re starting to ask tough questions about those Viagra commercials. If I plan those fourteen-hour days just right, I won’t see them again until those questions have been answered by their wives.

  Fifth, and most important: my soul is unlikely to get any more valuable than it is right now. In some ways, I almost feel sorry for the financial industry: in 1978, I’d have been willing to sell my soul for a photograph of Jaclyn Smith with her shirt off. Nowadays, I’m not going to sign it away for anything less than a ridiculous salary and a ridiculouser bonus. Also, that photograph of Jaclyn Smith with her shirt off, please.

  Sure, selling my soul will place me in jeopardy of eternal damnation and render me a dry husk of a human being, obsessed with the pursuit of greater personal wealth at the expense of the people I love and the values I cherish. But ultimately, I can just make like that Goldman Sachs guy—quit in a huff after twelve years, call my friends and colleagues a bunch of bottom-feeders and reclaim my moral compass.

  I get to keep the boat, right?

  Performance Reviews

  Boss: Come in, take a seat. So you are …

  Employee: Oh, I’m a little nervous, I suppose.

  No, your name.

  I’m … I’m Pat. I’ve worked for you for six years.

  Ah, yes, Pat! Good ol’ Pat! Pat, let me begin by saying this, Pat: most performance reviews are rigid, hierarchical affairs that cause anxiety in employees and lead to dangerously flawed outcomes. So let’s get started.