journal features

dodged a $5 bullet

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2013.06.04

Our son destroyed a brand new library book by tossing it into his backpack with a thermos bottle with the lid still unsealed. We wrote to the school telling them to bill us. Happily, the printed price on the book was only $5.

But the school wrote back telling us that considered it normal wear and tear, and that they wouldn't bill us.

This must be the "gravy train" we've been hearing so much about in Toronto civic politics. If I dare use "Toronto", "civic", and "politics" in one sentence.

Where's a our gravy-train-derailing mayor when we need him? Hmm, must be "around town" again.

rand()m quote

If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

—Roald Dahl