EXCHANGE NEEDLES MAJOR'S WIFE

Maj. (ret'd) Nigel Smythe-Brown Special to Times Colonist

This is the fourth instalment of our summer series, Major's Corner,
by Victoria clubman Maj. (ret'd) Nigel Smythe-Brown. Each week, the
gallopin' major shares a few inside stories from that Home of Homes,
and the members thereof, so put down your croquet mallet, pour a
Pimms and prepare to be amused.

Sometimes the primal ooze of this most unjust world makes up its mind
to assault we of a more sensitive nature, my current wife Kitty being
the latest victim caught without her "wellies" in the "outside of the
club" elements.

Being of a benign and gentle nature, unless one speaks ill of the cat
Charles who haunts the family pile in Rockcliff, she likes to do her
bit for the lower orders, who are less fortunate in that something
like the Club Roast Beef and YP would rarely cross their lips.

She once brought 60 hard-of-hearing seniors to the club where she
presented them with new hearing aids through the generosity of the
club Mems. Unfortunately in the private dining room next door the
Tuneful-Tuning Fork quartet were at practice for the mid-summer dance
and had just swung into their rendition of The Port Alberni Blues,
which to the newly wired seniors sounded like someone ringing their
collective front door, so they started shouting "Come in, Come in."

They then swarmed around the club like confused locusts rethinking
their earlier decision to eat their leader.

Now my lovely darling, who reads the very sensible Times Colonist
every day, has become incensed about the many citizens' objections to
the "Needle Exchange Centre" situated in the downtown core.

First thing in the morning last week, there was my dear Kitty lined
up, as she put it, "with some very odd people" but with her good
intentions still intact, outside a strangely filthy Needle Exchange.

Unfortunately, I was not there as I was knee deep in a two-day
conference at Parksville on the "inexplicable decline of the martini"
and so unable to protect dear Kitty from the harsher realities of
"city council and social engineering" in the modern Victoria.

After standing in excrement and garbage for fully two hours, as well
as being the victim of some fairly riotous behaviour, she reached the
longed-for attendant sitting at a loathsome table. The expression of
the civil servant was not unlike the look on the faces of Trojans
awakened by the contents of that lovely gift horse.

He, in short, gawped as Macbeth gawped at the cranky Macduff, in
disbelief and worry that this spectre might somehow affect his
pension, which at his age had begun to heave into view.

Kitty stared back at the quaking man, sure of her ground and the
contents of her purse, which she now opened and smilingly displayed
for all and sundry as the nearby office had now disgorged its
contents, who were morbidly curious to see what this obvious woman of
standing could want there. Kitty undid the cloth bag and rolled it
out across the table, proudly stating, "These are my grandmother's
knitting needles, over 100, which I am gladly giving to the
authorities to do as they see fit, and in exchange I would like an
electric-blue pashmina."

A damp silence filled the foul room, as many of the soiled minds
tried to gather their frayed edges to make sense of the previous
sentence. Finally, a leader was found: "How much are they worth,
lady," he slowly and methodically said as the brighter amongst the
employees began to make their getaway through the now open back door.

"Why," said Kitty, "each is inlaid with mother of pearl and would
easily fetch ..."

She got no further, as the smelly crowd took on the mentality of a
herd that had just been made aware that the dinner bell had been rung
and dived collectively onto the table, sending my current wife
spinning toward the door, skidding on something frightful out onto the street.

She arrived disheveled back at the club, missing a stocking, burbling
about ingrates and proposing a mass flogging for all city councillors.

My newly emotionally cauterized wife now reads only Ayn Rand, and
plots against more needle exchanges.