It has been a while since I wrote anything political, the main reason being I have lost the drive to jump in the smelly soup that is politics.
However Frederick Fuffelfinger, my uncouth and crude alter ego, jumped in again and asked me why don’t you write about prime rib.
I was perplexed and said what has prime rib to do with politics you stupid fool. Fredrick suggested that Prime Minister Harper would be more palatable as prime rib than as Prime Minister.
For once I had to agree with Frederick, so the question arose how would you cook Harper ribs?
They definitely did not need grease because they were oil soaked already, but how to get rid of the strong bitumen spice odour was a problem. I thought that smoking them with wood taken from one of the immense waste wood piles on clear cut sites was one heck of good environmental plan since the wood was going to be burned anyway.
To my amazement, Frederick kept his crude and rude trap shut. I decided that I would smoke the Harper ribs on site to honour the trees that had fallen.
Furthermore, I would invite people to the cooking grounds and charge $25 per rib to be donated to the Society of Good Riddance to Politically Correct Language.
The plan seemed to be faultless with two exceptions: how can we lure prime rib Harper to the cooking site; and how can we get him to donate his ribs. This was a problem that seemed very hard to overcome but then Frederick had a good idea. He suggested that we tell prime rib Harper that there was oil spouting out of the ground in the central Interior of B.C.
Once there, I could take him to the smoke site and ask him to donate his ribs. On second thought, it would be very unlikely that this very self-centred individual would donate his ribs without a struggle because his shirt and jacket would not fit him anymore without his ribs. As sad as it was I had to shelve the idea of smoked Harper ribs.
As an after thought, road kill would be a substitute and better eating than Harper ribs, but it did not fit the scheme of things. My disillusionment was so great that when people said hi Bert, I said please say low Bert. Then another thought struck me and put fear in my heart. Some of his M.P.’s were causing trouble in Ottawa, the pipeline to the States was faltering and the one to the B.C. Coast was meeting with increasing resistance; Mr. Harper would be in a foul mood to say the least and I would be in deep trouble for misleading him.
On top of it all I would be in the middle of a clear cut where it would be hard to escape from his armed body guards.
I realized being in the middle of a clear cut is somewhat like being on the prairies, where you can be seen running away for days. Frederick piped up saying that I was surely going to go to jail if not get killed. It took all I had not to strangle that loud mouth, but he disappeared deep inside me where I could not reach him.
Then a fool proof plan for escape hit me. I would hide my motor bike nearby in a wood pile and rent a big helium tank. As soon as the Harper entourage got there I would open the helium tank and listen to Mr. Harper yell and scream in a helium produced pip squeak voice. Then, in the confusion, I would ride away and become a folk hero. I hope Frederick will get an inferiority complex because I am a good planner.
Bert de Vink is a regular Observer columnist.