The Future and Why We Should Avoid It

by Scott Feschuk

  Having an extramarital affair: Engaging in a tawdry fling would violate the sanctity of the marital bond and inflict grave emotional distress. Also, it seems like a lot of work—the sneaking around, the clandestine texting, and all those candles that need to be lit around the bathtub (I’ve never had an affair so I assume all are conducted like the ones on TV). And the cost of hotel room service every time—that’s some pricey sex-having! Nor should we overlook all the flirting that’s required to get things started—I mean, who’s got the energy? Listen, lady, you’re very attractive but tonight’s episode of The Mentalist isn’t going to watch itself.

  There are practical concerns, too. When I hit forty, I pretty much had to stop lying in all aspects of my life because my memory is no longer reliable enough to keep track of any untruths. How can I remember to hide the Visa bill when I forgot we had a Visa?

  Another critical guideline of the mid-life crisis is that under no circumstances is one permitted to copy the crisis of a friend. It draws too much attention. One middle-aged man deciding to buy a motorbike can be plausibly explained as an innocuous new pastime. Two middle-aged men suddenly buying motorcycles supplies the planet’s recommended daily allowance of sadness.

  So what’s left?

  Pursue a selfless dedication to others: Confronted with their mortality, some resolve in middle age to seek a more fulfilling existence through tireless dedication to noble causes. This is a deeply honourable path for a human being to follow. On the other hand: really boring.

  Start seeing a psychiatrist: The most important thing about seeing a psychiatrist is that you can tell people you’re seeing a psychiatrist. In the eyes of others, this gives you Hidden Depth. I always thought Scott was fairly normal and dull, but turns out he’s walking the knife-edge of madness! I’m keeping this one in my back pocket.

  Blame others for my failings: A real load off.

  Move to Shaving Commercial World: You probably haven’t considered this option, but give it a chance …

  For years, I sat in front of the television and envied the male inhabitants of Shaving Commercial World—envied them their spacious bathrooms and their fogless mirrors and their unfailingly buxom and easily impressed women friends (“You successfully shaved your face? Let’s have sex!”). I marvelled at their precise application of lather and their sombre beard-based reminiscences. And I was enthralled by the recurring depiction of the plight of that single villainous facial hair, expertly vanquished by the noble forces of steel, cream and crude computer animation. Take that, Señor Whisker.

  Shaving Commercial World is a modern-day utopia where there are no nicks, no razor burn and apparently no shirts. In Shaving Commercial World, George Clooney’s perpetual three-day growth of beard marks him as a haggard drifter shunned by women and feared by children—whereas my smooth, satisfying shave puts me at constant risk of beatification and/or a threesome. In my new world, I could steal Clooney’s girlfriend and still have enough time left in my day to cinch a crisp white towel around my waist.

  In Shaving Commercial World, a man gets to spend five, six hours in a row admiring his clean, close shave—which is great. But I already did that back in my old, regular world. What’s different is that in Shaving Commercial World a man’s shave is simultaneously admired by a sexy woman who has pouty lips and also cleavage. Should you grow weary of stroking your own chin and cheeks appreciatively (a long shot, but still), she will stroke them for you. Your burden is her burden. Your joy is her joy. Meanwhile her cleavage remains her cleavage, although you can negotiate visitation rights.

  But never let it be said the inhabitants of Shaving Commercial World are a frivolous people. Over the past decade, I have witnessed their single-minded quest for progress—evolving from the primitive Bic Twin Select, with its two measly blades, through the Mach 3 and the Schick Quattro to the Gillette Fusion, which has five blades and is so high-tech and miraculous that the mere presence of it leaves scantily clad females with no hormone-based option but to raise an eyebrow with seductive intent.

  You might ask: Are there other advantages of moving to Shaving Commercial World? Well, back in your world I had plenty of obligations and worries. In Shaving Commercial World, there is only one obligation: figuring out how to fit even more blades onto a razor to deliver an even closer, even smoother marketing campaign.

  Still, Shaving Commercial World isn’t without its challenges. The schools aren’t great, what with government’s extravagant funding of shiny, futuristic laboratories and the generous tax credit for chest waxing. And believe me: life is not easy on anyone with an allergy to subpar acting.

  Then again, it’s not like Shaving Commercial World is the only relocation option. In fact, I thought first about moving to Axe Body Spray World, where there is also an abundance of cleavage—as well as cleavage’s popular roommate, nymphomania. But frankly, I’m at the age where my thoughts turn to the more practical elements of being gang-tackled by thirty-eight sex-hungry stereotypes. Uhh, it’s great that you’re naked and all caressy and stuff, but this grass stain isn’t going to remove itself from this pair of Dockers, ladies.

  I also briefly considered Ford World, attracted by the idea that everything I did in Ford World would be voiced-over by Kiefer Sutherland. This would, I reasoned, add drama and gravitas to my crochet class. “He lifts his handcrafted maple Tunisian hooks. Is that a shawl he’s making? Or is it [dramatic pause] a poncho?” I also gave thought to packing up and heading to Coors Light Commercial World, but in the end I wasn’t sure I had a sufficient amount of homosexuality to repress by pretending to be that not gay.

  Ultimately, I decided that Shaving Commercial World is the place for me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see a lingerie model and three of her bikini team colleagues coming up the walk to welcome my face to the neighbourhood. If only I could figure out how to remove this crisp white towel …

  Back in the real world, I’ve already started planning for my decline. Perhaps you think of your summer vacation as a respite. Not me. I see mine as an opportunity—a chance to train for retirement, to prepare myself mentally and physically to be the best at doing not very much at all.

  Career-wise, this past summer found me exactly halfway through my projected work life—before the traditional age of pensions and porch-sitting. The time was right to check where I stood in terms of my pursuit of three critical retirement goals and in terms of whether my super-lazy vacationing is helping me get there.

  Let’s start with Goal No. 1: Learning How to Make a Big Deal about Things.

  From what I can tell, one of the keys to a successful retirement is being able to portray an ordinary outing as something far more ambitious. Here’s a good example: to judge from the theatrics of my late grandfather, no civilian award bestowed by the Governor General would have been sufficient to recognize his valour and sacrifice in bringing in the mail. He’d throw those envelopes down on the kitchen table like a Plains Indian presenting a slain buffalo to the tribe. OVER TO THE WOMENFOLK—MY WORK HERE IS DONE.

  A beach vacation is great training in this regard. Once you’re hunkered down in the sand, talk of driving to town for supplies acquires the kind of rhetoric usually reserved for assaulting Everest in short shorts. Heck, there was a time when I went twenty minutes without a beer because I was positioned comfortably in a chair and the cooler was slightly over there. I portrayed the act of finally getting up as on a par with the actions of a Greek god—and one of the good ones too, not the god of pottery or napping or whatever.

  In retirement, this skill set should translate to mall outings. “Well, I’m back and I managed to get you your bag of Kernels.” [Sits down and patiently awaits celebratory parade.]

  Goal No. 2: Having Strong Opinions about Things.

  I need improvement here. I don’t feel enough ways about stuff—at least, not with sufficient passion and rage. Certainly, I’m about as far as one can get from my grandmother, wh
ose every sentence began with a Dismissive Wave of the Hand and continued along the lines of “Ah, those (politicians / bankers / reporters / squirrels) up there (in Ottawa / on Bay Street / on the TV / in my attic) are all the same!”

  But I’m not entirely without elderly calibre conversational skills. There’s my keen ability to observe the obvious and remark upon it. In fact, not ten minutes ago, I said to my family: “Sure is a lot of fog out there this morning.” You know, just in case they were wondering what all that fog-like stuff was. (It was fog.)

  I’ve also mastered certain non-verbal forms of communication, including the all-important getting-up-from-a-chair noise, which needs to suggest a level of exertion heretofore thought beyond the reach of mortal man. After a two-hour hike this week, I fell into the sofa for thirty minutes—then asked one of my kids to transcribe the sound I made as I got up. Here’s what he wrote: “Hmmrrrrrpphhhhaaaaahh.” If anything, he went a little light on the A’s.

  My third and final retirement goal: Accepting That I Will Never Again Remember Any New Information.

  As I indicated earlier in this chapter (at least I think I mentioned it? And who are you again?), I’m getting closer to living with the reality that my brain hasn’t retained any new facts since 2007. It’s as though my neurons got together and decided: “If we take on even one more piece of knowledge, we’re going to forget the plot of every episode of Fantasy Island. And that, my friends, is simply too high a price.”

  This summer, having forgotten that I can no longer remember things, I paid actual money to purchase a book with the title Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present. At long last, my knowledge of European geopolitical dynamics would extend beyond what I learned from Risk. I was about sixty pages in when I had the following conversation with one of my boys:

  He: What’s your book about?

  Me [slyly consulting the cover]: It’s about the history of Europe, from 1453 to the present.

  He: What happened in 1453?

  [Pause]

  Me: Did I mention that it’s published by the fine people at Allen Lane?

  He: Seriously, what have you learned so far?

  [Long pause]

  Me: I believe mention is made of Belgium.

  I purposely left the book behind when we went home. At least, I think I did.

  Like anyone in middle age who has a mortgage, car payments and an investment portfolio heavily weighted toward sofa-cushion change, I am coming to grips with the fact that I may never be rich. This is a shame because I’ve spent most of my life planning what I’d do as a man of unfathomable wealth and influence. In all honesty, I think I’d be pretty good at it. I certainly believe I could develop a natural affinity for talking down to foreigners. Wash the Bentley, Miguel, not the driveway.

  As one who since 1996 has insisted on riding in the back seat of his Corolla while holding a jar of Grey Poupon, I know exactly where I’d live as a rich man (a summer home in Tuscany, and winters on the moon). I know exactly what I’d spend my money on (caviar and revenge). And I know exactly which person I’d speak in (the third). Bottom line: Scott Feschuk believes Scott Feschuk is ready to be very wealthy.

  Lest you think me selfish, I’d be generous enough to give a small portion of my vast fortune to philanthropic pursuits. But I’d be petty enough to give it to the charity that agrees to name the most stuff after me. Sure, my millions could help cure cancer, but instead please join me at the grand opening of the gleaming new Scott M. Feschuk Centres for Lactose Intolerance.

  Alas, at my age it’s time to give up on implausible long shots, like my winning the lottery or ever working hard. Instead, this may be my last chance to convince someone of tremendous resources and limited due diligence to buy into one of my Five Surefire Ideas for Making Me Obscenely Rich:

  1. Produce pay-per-view celebrity weddings: Don’t even try to tell me you wouldn’t pay $49.95 to watch live as Katy Perry marries John Mayer or Robert Pattinson or a Teamster in a bunny costume that she just thought was sooooo cute. You’d watch it. We’d all watch it. The pre-ceremony jitters and dramatic HIV tests. The part where Donald Trump fires the caterer. And, for an extra fee, after-hours footage from the video camera rigged up in the honeymoon suite. A pay-per-view wedding would be a great career move for aspiring movie stars keen to build their public profiles, and for declining movie stars keen to keep their mansions and breasts from being repossessed. I literally cannot see how this idea isn’t going to make me a millionaire.

  2. Start up a magazine called The Beaver: What’s that you say? There already is a Canadian magazine called The Beaver? Wrong, idiot. After decades of publication, The Beaver changed its name. Turns out the word beaver also has a completely different meaning that I’d tell you about except that I can’t stop giggling because I am apparently twelve years old. Suffice to say the “unfortunate double entendre” was harming sales because subscription solicitations would get caught up in email spam filters, presumably along with pitches for Amateur Woodworker, Hot Rod and House & Scrotum. I plan to avoid that pitfall by advertising “Get Beaver Delivered to Your Home” on airplane banners flown over schoolyards. Just try to find a flaw in that plan.

  3. Invent the next must-have toy: As someone who, as a child, personally witnessed his own grandfather bowl over a tiny, helpless woman during a mad rush for the last pre-Christmas shipment of Care Bears, I know the power of the Big Holiday Toy. But kids today are more advanced and savvy, making this the perfect time for Baby’s First Reciprocating Saw. Better get in line now.

  4. Found the company Celebrity Eulogies, Inc.: We live in a culture obsessed with celebrities, and yet our funerals continue to be sullied by the reminiscences of mere friends and family. Wouldn’t your grandmother go more easily to her eternal resting place knowing that the tribute to her life was uttered not by fat Uncle Jimmy but by TV’s Starsky? Call and within forty-eight hours we’ll have a D- to C-list celebrity on hand to pay tribute to your dead relative, sign a few autographs and pity the fools in attendance (Mr. T only). For the right price, we could even have the supporting cast of The Sopranos act out one of the many scenes they shot around coffins. Believe me, those guys aren’t doing anything else.

  5. Create “anti-product placement” and unendorsements: No one listens to celebrity endorsers any more. So how to increase market share? Hire one of our celebrities to talk trash about your competitors. (“Hi, I’m Jay Z and this Pepsi I’m drinking tastes like urine.”) Or put your rival’s leading product into a carefully constructed scene in a movie featuring one of our celebrity clients, just as we’re pitching McDonald’s to do.

 

  We see Pauly Shore. He is dressed as Hitler.

  Hitler: This Burger King Whopper makes me want to invade Poland!

  Investors, I await your expressions of interest and, more to the point, your expressions of certified cheque. Please form an orderly line outside the door of the van where I live.

  I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but one’s decision to retire and not work anymore can bring about a consequence I’d never before pondered: people stop paying you money. Apparently you’re supposed to live on your “savings,” which I always assumed was just a hilarious hoax played on young people, like when they graduate from school and we tell them they can change the world and make it better.

  I’m not saying I haven’t properly prepared myself for retirement, but …

  An open letter to a member of my family.

  Dear S—

  This is difficult for me to write—although not as difficult as it will be for you to read, given that you are (a) not especially bright, and (b) a dog.

  We’re letting you go, Squib. You’re fired.

  Somewhere in that tiny dog brain of yours, you’re probably asking yourself: Why? Why would a family cut ties with an adorable chocolate Labrador? Rest assured: it’s not us. It’s you.

&n
bsp; Like 90 percent of people who obtain dogs these days, I bought you for the express purpose of publishing a bestselling book about your incorrigible canine antics and the profound emotional bonds we forged on the path to your tragic, painful death.

  John Grogan did it with Marley & Me. Dean Koontz did it with A Big Little Life. Ten squillion other people did it with their own loyal, terminally ill dogs. There are books about Merle and Sprite, Chance and Gracie. Books about deaf dogs and genius dogs and always the personal journeys filled with joy and anguish. It’s like the old saying goes: a dog truly is man’s best retirement plan.

  I remember how excited we were when we picked you out, Squib. The kids saw in you an energetic playmate and loyal companion. I saw in you a potential for paperback residuals and ancillary merchandising rights. The first time we met, you came running toward us—tongue wagging, paws flailing—and smashed head-on into the chain-link fence. “An idiot,” I thought. “Perfect.” I started taking notes for Moron & Me.

  Over the next few months, you showed flashes of potential. For instance, I very much enjoyed it when you urinated on that veterinary assistant. She was so unpleasant that, well, let’s just say you barely beat me to it. And eating our cordless phone? Bravo.

  But then you got lazy. You found socks on the floor and had the gall to leave them intact. You stopped terrifying the elderly. And you became a slave to the same tired habits. Take my word for it, Squib: an author can only devote so many chapters to crotch sniffing and expect to be hailed as a major literary talent (Charles Bukowski excepted).

  Alas, I no longer get the sense that you’re the kind of hilariously disobedient dog who’s going to a tragic end that I can then exploit by overwriting a cloying meditation on how your canine nobility empowered me to discover what it means to be truly human.

  Have you read Dean Koontz’s book, Squib? Probably not. You’re more of a Glenn Beck man, aren’t you?