WIEDER’S EXTRA BAGGAGE #3

I routinely come across a variety of reality quirks in my Internet wanderings and don’t have any other use for them. Here are a handful of them. They come from sources about as reputable as any these days, and to the best of my knowledge are factually true.

FLIN FLAN FLIM FLAM
Medicinal marijuana is legal in Canada, which seems somehow appropriate for a country whose flag is a leaf. In fact, weed is supplied to certified users at $150 for 30 grams by Health Canada, the country’s national health agency, which gets it from a growing outfit called Prairie Plant Systems. As you might expect given a pot farm with “Systems” in its name--or for that matter, with a name, period--almost none of the 600-odd Canadian citizens who are licensed to get legally loaded will touch the stuff. They eschew and revile it as being weak, ineffective, and tasting of chemicals. Perhaps these characteristics have to do with the fact that Prairie Plant Systems grows its pot in Flin Flan, Manitoba...IN AN ABANDONED MINE SHAFT. Honest! This is what happens when government goes into the illicit drug business. Give that some thought before you buy into the “Let’s decriminalize, control and oversee it” line.

CELLOPAIN
“Cell chords” are a clinician’s term for raw, sore and blistered vocal chords, sometimes with nodules that require surgery, which afflict persons who chronically and prolongedly talk too loudly into their cell phones. I only mention this painful malady because it suggests that there might actually be a God.

TAKE UP THY ROD AND THY STAFF
The Jesus Christians is the catchy but unoriginal name of a religious cult which originated in Australia and is now spreading into the U.S. Among its other compelling spiritual qualities is its fundamental tenet that its followers should masturbate as a substitute for and preventive against marriage. The rim shot: “It’s the only church where the prayer books have a centerfold.” And the pages commonly get stuck together. And instead of crossing themselves, members of the flock kind of make a fist and...well, you get the picture.