I really don’t know what to make of some people these days, I mean as to how rude they can be. There is a member here at the club who appears to make it his business to upset other mems whenever he can.
The chap, I cannot mention his name (George Humbug) for the club frowns on identifying mems, has been that way all his life, I am told. Sherman Sorbet was just saying the other day that the man was the bane of the junior cotillion back in his misspent youth and the powers that were would have banned him from all civilized activities but for his well-thought-of father, a pillar amongst the city cognoscenti. Let us call him George for the purposes of this article.
George would arrive at parties with the sole idea of upsetting innocents, particularly girls. It appeared to delight him no end. Sherman recalled the time a debutante called Dawn Pristine was walking down the grand staircase of some stately home. George leapt from behind a potted plant and said, “Hey Dawn, how’s your crack?” Outrageous to say the least, not to mention the flood of tears it brought from the lovely Miss Pristine and a hyena-like laugh from George.
“Oh, no, I was told he would not be invited,” she wailed to the hostess, who could only shrug helplessly.
Why is it that some people like to hurt others just for the sake of it? There is no answer other than they like doing it.
I well recall from my distant past at school a young man who had everything going for him except that he was mean and apparently happy to be so. Parker was a handsome boy with a screw loose. His most egregious outrage was to wait till some “New Boy” was sleeping peacefully and sneak over to his bed with a warm washcloth, place said wet item on the toes of his victim, then return to his own bed. The upshot was the poor student awoke to a wet bed and a subsequent flogging with a new reputation of being a filthy sloth and not using the nearby facilities. Parker went on his pleasant way for years until finally being horsewhipped by a maddened father in the Yukon for inappropriate conduct toward his daughter. Something about broken promises and purloined funds. I gather some people are just born on parole.
And so it would seem with our George here at the club, in the bosom of civil society. Our boy was known as a card who was past his prime. I mean to say, jumping out of the cloakroom going “Boo” at the likes of Mrs. Hynde-Quarters and Mrs. ffrangington-Davis smacks of sophomoric humour at the best of times and is certainly below club standards. But greasing a dumbbell so the Brigadier dropped it on the Blind Admiral while he was sleeping soundly on the rowing machine – that was beyond the pale.
I am all for the occasional tossed bun at a club do, especially when a fellow mem is talking pure socialist gibberish, but in the exercise room when most chaps are under-dressed and unprepared for any sort of attack, it is not on.
If George saw a quiet conversation amongst the women members, he would subtlety lower his fly and sit with his legs spread, smiling glibly as the conversation died into embarrassed silence. In short not a nice man.
The climax of this misbehaviour came when the fool put sneezing powder in the Kleenex receptacles around the club, with the upshot that the more the mems sneezed, the more they needed the tissues. It was chaos and not a good advertisement for our club guests. Many of us had swollen proboscises for several weeks. Why, the man is an absolute shower….
A committee called GMG (for “George must go”) was formed in secret. Many mems recalled his appalling behaviour down through the years with only the Very Reverend “Mumbles” Te Deum taking George’s side, as is his wont. But it was not enough, and the culprit was to walk the plank, as it were.
Just as we were about to draw matchsticks to see who would deliver the bad news to George, he fell for a petite civil servant with a large pension and five years of sick leave built up. It was love at first sight for him when he glanced at her bank balance. The woman and our former mem left quickly for Malta. It is a favourite place for grinning former servants of the Crown, I am told. There are not many Canadians to throw stones at them in a jealous rage.
The club has returned to a state of contentment, with all the male mems checking their zippers constantly.
Copyright: Christopher Dalton 2015.
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Suzanne French-Smith
GREAT to have you back!! Keep those creative juices flowing….