Summer’s turned to fall, leaves are doing just that, and my email boxes are getting stuffed. Time to answer some burning questions, or at least verbally burning effigies... even if they’re mine. Note: Some emails have been altered to follow basic rules of grammar and spelling.
Hey Max: Since you seem to follow politics, do you think the Conservatives will dump Erin O’Toole for losing the election?
No Con Left Behind
Dear No: I don’t believe dumping Mr. O’Toole would be either smart or kind. Dumping Prime Minister Trudeau would be both, not to mention giving him more time to surf and ski and less need to apologize. Keeping Mr. O’Toole will ensure the rabid right of the Conservative party will continue to fracture off to la-la land—the PPC’s domain—and uphold the post-Harper tradition of having a leader no one is sure they can trust. Dumping Trudeau would just be the right thing to do... because it’s 2022, or at least it will be soon.
Max: Your opinions are scary. What’s even scarier is Pique Newsmagazine has let you print this dribble. I feel sorry for you.
SS
Dear Schultzstaffel: What’s really scary is you don’t seem to know the difference between dribble and drivel. Dribble is what runs down a baby’s cheek or what a Raptor does with a basketball. Drivel is what I write, though I prefer piffle. That said, thank you; it’s devoted readers like yourself that keep me from being fired.
You poor, deluded sheep. You’ve been brainwashed, probably by whatever they put in your COVID vaccine. You’ve given up your freedom and you don’t even know it. I’d suggest you read or watch some of the links below and get yourself educated.
Free Forever
Dear FF: I know the casual nature of email, not to mention the dehumanizing effects of social media, have made such arcane things as salutations passé, but in the future I’d prefer if you’d start your missives with, “Dear Deluded Sheep,” or some such formal greeting. So much for Miss Manners.
You’ll probably not be surprised to hear I didn’t bother linking to any of your 436 links. Many of them I’ve seen or been offered previously by others who share your unfortunately not unique worldview. I’m OK with Bill Gates controlling my mind, the microchips floating through my circulatory system, the poisonous ingredients in my vaccines and suffering from worldwide mass hypnosis. But then, I grew up in the 1960s and was willing to take just about anything offered.
And while I wouldn’t think of discouraging you from writing again, please know I don’t respond to anonymous emails. I can understand why you might not want to use your real name but let me assure you, it’s actually very difficult to get someone committed just because they live in an alternate reality. I didn’t want you to mistake my not answering for having included you in my spam filter. I’d never do that. After all, as above, it’s loyal readers like yourself, etc.
GD: Media has been full of stories the last little while about unvaccinated people in Alberta who caught COVID and are now evangelical converts, telling other people to get vaccinated. Is it me or is this just hypocritical hindsight?
No Sympathy
Dear No: I hope you don’t mind me calling you by your first name. Whether it’s hypocritical hindsight or simply human nature is a matter of degree. Personally, I find it a basic lack of integrity. If those people, who didn’t get vaccinated for whatever reason, had any integrity, they’d have the courage of their convictions and not overwhelm hospitals and ICU wards to the point even Jason Kenney has to call in the military to help and airlift patients out of province. Let them stay home, dose themselves with the latest quack remedy and die in peace.
Then again, if medical professionals weren’t so darned humanitarian, they’d be turned away at the door and told to go home and hope for the best. It seems to me a weird priority that turns people away who have legitimate medical needs, that cancels long awaited surgeries, in order to overflow hospitals with people who wouldn’t take the simple step of getting vaccinated. I would prefer they made their too-little-too-late selfies from their own beds at home but then, there are those who question my empathy.
Dear Max: You’ve been bang on with recent columns. I don’t often agree with you but you’ve sure nailed it lately. Keep up the good work.
A Fan
Dear Fan: This is a trick, right?
Max: I’m steaming. Vail, or is that Fail, charged me a US$4.95 “shipping” charge to deliver my season pass. Each! With six kids, that’s US$39.60 to ship passes we already have from last year! What a ripoff. And trying to get an answer from anyone at WB is impossible. What should I do?
Outraged
Dear Out... in keeping with my casual familiarity. I’ve chosen yours to represent the dozens of similar emails I’ve received. Six children! They say J.S. Bach had 20 children... because his organ had no stops! Sorry, old organist’s joke.
I don’t know what to say. Vail Resorts has gotten rid of almost anyone locally who might address your issue. All decisions are now made in the Field of Brooms. Even the former director of miscommunications is gone. I’m not sure US$4.95 each is enough to start a class action suit and those things are really hard to do in Canada. But what I can offer, for whatever relief it may be, is to put you on the list for the T-shirts and sweatshirts I’m going to order from Toad Hall. Emblazoned with the old Whistler and Blackcomb mountain logos—the ones before the stylized swimming sperm—on the front, they’ll be printed on the back with: F#*K Vail: I ski Whistler and Blackcomb!
Let me know how many you want. They’ll be in Canadian dollars.
Max: Turkey or ham for Thanksgiving?
Hungry
Dear Hungry: Either, just let me know when you want me to come over. Kidding, of course. While many may see this as a first-world problem—and others as genocide—I feel your pain. I used to just say it didn’t matter because whichever you decide on, you can have the other at Christmas. But someone said that was insensitive to people who don’t celebrate Christmas. Meh.
But now that we have a federal holiday on September 30, I consider the problem solved. You should just about have finished the leftovers of one before you pop the other in the oven. And that leaves Christmas open for those who love goose. Win-win.
