Roger Pires November 08, 2012
When he's not offering his take on daily life, Roger Pires spends his days as a computer systems analyst. It's not exactly a glamorous calling but hey, it pays the bills. He enjoys hockey, canoeing, snowshoeing, and spending as much time as he possibly can outdoors. He lives in Udora with his wife and two kids, who are his prime inspiration for Ravenshoe Ramblings.
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The young and the useless
It started when I was a kid. I would barricade myself behind a wall of cereal boxes and study the ingredients of my breakfast. The tables of nutritional contents were the original box scores in my world. It was evident early on that I was one of those people for whom the acquisition of mundane trivia and useless data would be a lifelong affliction. It still haunts me today; people always tell me I’m full of it.
Growing up, breakfast wasn’t so much a meal as an expedition. I would often venture into the heart of culinary darkness by experimenting with unusual cereal combinations. As a ten-year-old Balboa of the breakfast table, I would pour Bran Flakes and Honeycomb into the same bowl and drown them in milk. No concoction was too disgusting or otherworldly for the Cereal Warrior. In one ill-advised bout of foolishness, I even poured chocolate milk over a slagheap of Captain Crunch and Lucky Charms. The resulting brown sludge with green and purple highlights looked more like an industrial accident than the day’s most important meal. It was also the day I was introduced to Kaopectate.
But these insane cravings were just a sidebar; it still came down to the facts. By the time the bowl was empty, I could recite the vital statistics of my breakfast for all to hear. “Hey Mom, did you know there is enough sugar in a bowl of Count Chocula to drop a young moose? And that it also contains 17% of your daily recommended dose of thiamin?” Unless you’re a young moose or suffer from an acute shortage of essential minerals you probably couldn’t give a rat’s tail feathers for such drivel. But I found it fascinating. They probably rued the day they did it, but my parents bought me a set of encyclopedias when I was twelve. Talk about promoting the junkie to head pharmacist. I would disappear into my room for hours to pore over them. Just as mom and dad were about to send in a search party, I would emerge from my bunker to regale them with little factoids too obscure even for Trivial Pursuit. I couldn’t remember to walk the dog or how to load a dishwasher, but I could inform them that Dag Hammerskjold succeeded Trygve Lie as Secretary-General of the United Nations. They would nod their heads and smile, fearing their son was this close to being a case study on Dr. Phil.
Still, knowledge, even the useless kind, is power. And with great power comes great responsibility. My school chums would remind me of this every day. I was already, shall we say, socially awkward. If getting beat up in science class was a sport, I would’ve made the All-Nerd team. They would warn me that if I started reciting the nutritional contents of my breakfast at recess, I would end up tied to a tree naked. They probably saved my life.
But I was something of an enigma to the goons that used to tap dance on my windpipe before the teacher arrived. Aside from being a “browner” (a term that honours and demeans at the same time), I was also good at sports. I was better at floor hockey than many of my assailants, which bought me some grudging respect from the herculoid set. But once a nerd always a nerd. At our graduation ceremony, I was voted “Most Likely to Wear a Pocket Liner”. My propensity for being a data machine only cemented this image.
Aside from annoying your family on long car trips, I can’t think of a single practical use for my particular, um, gift. Except one, perhaps. I believe my pointless tangents could save Dalton McGuinty’s taxpayer-funded hide. Premier Dad could offer up a parting gift to the people of Ontario before taking that long hike up Mount Government Pension. He should create a new cabinet post – Minister of Useless Information. Of course a cabinet shuffle would unearth a whole host of worthy candidates, some of whom already hold the title in an unofficial capacity. But I’ve been honing my skills for a lifetime. I could be the secret weapon of a wayward government looking for the ultimate distraction. They could parade the right honourable member in front of the cameras to take the flak for the latest embattled politico. Roll tape.
“Mr. Minister, could you please tell us why your government couldn’t find a solution to the deficit with both hands and a road map?”
“No. But did you know that the voice of Tony the Tiger was none other than Thurl Ravenscroft? And that he also sang, ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch’?”
Another scandal averted.
