Essays in Idleness

The “juice of the pample mouse,” as it is called in Canada, or “grape-fruit juice” as it is called in the United States (where they are commonly juiced in Florida), together with the pample mice in their raw state, were, until my admission to an Ontario socialized hospital a few years ago, among my favourite culinary entertainments. Imagine how unsurprised I was, when it appeared on a dietary list for items I must now avoid. When I demanded an explanation, I was told of some mysterious pharmaceutical conflict. For modern medicine is a Puritan activity: anything you enjoy must be stopped.

After a memorable fight with the general practitioner to whose “roster” I was assigned, I was “rostered.” This is a custom we have in Ontario, where a patient can be cut off all medical services or attention if his immigrant doctor decides that he is Jewish. (Incorrectly, in my case.) I had lost count of the number of expensive pills he had prescribed, tests and procedures he had assigned. How wonderful to be cut off.

This happened a couple of years ago. My condition immediately improved. (Perhaps I should be thanking Hamas.) Neither must I wear masks, or follow the other witchcraftly practices he specified.

But out of neurotic habit, I had stayed away from the pample mice, until yesterday, when I was enflamed with desire. Visiting a supermarket, I realized that I could openly buy these delightful round creatures, or obtain a whole plastic jug into which they had been squeezed. It was a “Tropicana” jug containing 1.36 litres, of the squeezed pample mice, that had been filled in the free state of Florida.

It is one of the new high-tech jugs, which promise to keep contents fresh for an indefinite period, but cannot in any circumstance be opened. I am now in my second day of trying to unscrew the top. It is the capitalist’s answer to Canadian socialism.