National Post (National Edition)

DO I HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT 2018? BLATCHFORD.

Some things that have been annoying me

- Christie Blatchford National Post cblatchfor­d@postmedia.com

Surely it is time for Urgent Questions For And About 2018: Does anyone but me remember when adults had love affairs without one of the parties later attempting to extract revenge, usually by blabbing, for alleged wrongs?

Who are these knobs I saw, while running at 6 a.m., talking so remorseles­sly into their phones? To whom were they talking and how badly did those people want to just shoot themselves in the head to make the yammering stop? Why didn’t they hang up?

Aside from teenage girls, who needs to talk to someone else 24/7, least of all with such relentless urgency?

And how is it that whenever I heard such persons, they were invariably describing where in the city they were or where they soon would be? Who cares? May I say that the odds are very, very good that no one cared?

And who talks on the phone while walking their baby or dog anyway? The reason you have a baby or dog, surely, is to spend time with them, no?

In the same vein, do all the little kids being raised by Filipina nannies believe themselves to also be from the Philippine­s or of Filipina heritage? At what age is it appropriat­e for the actual parents to break it to the child that they are not, in fact, that interestin­g? How do those conversati­ons go (“No, Blake honey. You are not a little Tagalog boy; you’re a little Protestant boy whose people came from England…”) anyway?

Who else would join Albertans if they decided to separate?

Is Canada being punished for something? Is that why we are cursed with leadership, with so few exceptions, which is at best mediocre and at worst unspeakabl­e?

When did everyone as a matter of course start cramming the contents of a huge check-in bag into a marginally smaller purportedl­y carry-on bag? Why do the airlines allow it?

Has anyone actually tried to check her privilege?

Is it a rule that in order to board a bus, subway or streetcar, you must be carrying at least 25 kilos in a backpack, the better to knock over your fellow passengers?

Why does the newish Toronto Star editor feel compelled to hector her readers on Twitter about why they should care about Star journalism, how very superior Star journalism allegedly is, and how very much it all matters to the state of the world? Does any of this work? Has Star readership increased a whit? Or do readers remember when being self-congratula­tory, let alone self-adulatory, was considered poor form?

Are there any reporters left who remember when “long form” journalism was just called “long”, and sometimes, if only under an editor’s breath, “long and really boring”?

Is there anywhere on the planet a person who does not keep a list of the 251 passwords, the minimum one needs to survive in a wired world, in a document cleverly called “passwords”?

Anyone else weary of weed?

Speaking of which, is there a doctor in Canada who will not upon request write a prescripti­on for medical marijuana, whether for chronic pain, passing headache, sleeplessn­ess, anxiety, flatulence, depression, broken limbs, torn fingernail­s, cancer, fear of heights, etc., etc.?

Finally, if people are going to smoke the stuff everywhere, and clearly they are, can scientists not work on a way of de-stinkifyin­g it?

Tired of “authentic” yet? Do people have no understand­ing that when they say that politician X or celebrity Y “seemed really authentic”, it’s inherently oxymoronic? One either is authentic or one is not, surely?

Or how about the loathsome phrase “calling out?” Is that not the most benign way imaginable of describing what people do to one another on social media when they perceive themselves to have been victimized by someone else? Wouldn’t an accurate substitute be “tearing apart”, e.g., “Joan tore apart Andy online because he once made a pass at her?”

And speaking of that sort of thing, how on earth is a man, or woman, to know if his or her lust/affection/interest is reciprocat­ed if not by making a tiny pass and seeing how it is received? Are we really to ask one another and thus obtain consent first, à la, “Bill, I have this weird hankering to play footsie with you under the table … how would you feel about that?”

Will this be the last year that fully grown adults continue to believe that if they send intimate pictures of themselves nothing bad will happen? Will the recognitio­n finally sink in that something bad always happens?

Does Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who apparently does not drink, not seem like the sort of fellow who does?

And finally, will people for God’s sakes stop saying “I feel like …” when what they mean is, “I think”?

Thank you.

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