Where are kids learning such extreme language? Everywhere. Reality television, ultraviolent video games, laxly-censored movies, gangsta rap, shock radio… . The vulgarity envelope gets pushed a little further every day. You don’t have to be a nuclear physicist to recognize the linear relationship between unsupervised access to certain media and Potty Mouth Syndrome.

To make matters worse, there doesn’t appear to be a lower age limit to this worrisome phenomenon. Last fall Ellen started grade four. One day she was helping out in a kindergarten classroom at lunchtime. One of the littluns she was in charge of made a mess and casually strolled away from it. When Ellen reminded him to clean up, he glared at her and told her to f**k off. What’s next, fetuses cursing in utero?

Generation Z also seems to have no qualms about littering. It’s hard to believe the amount of garbage strewn around some playgrounds and schoolyards. The same can be said about the routes along which kids walk to get to school. The elderly widow across the street from us allows neighbourhood kids to cut through her yard on their way to and from school. How is her kindness repaid? Every day her property gets littered with empty pop cans and junk food debris. I’m surprised she doesn’t complain. Maybe she’s afraid to.

Our daughters get frustrated whenever they see people litter. Once Alanna asked a classmate why he dumps his trash on the playground every recess. His reply? “Someone else will pick it up.” I shouldn’t demonize kids who litter, though. Children learn through instruction and observation. A few months ago I went to the washroom at a movie theatre. A little boy and his father were standing in front of the urinals. The boy was holding a Kleenex. Try as he might, he just couldn’t manage to unzip his pants while maintaining his grip on the tissue paper. Eventually he asked his dad for help. “Just drop it on the floor,” his father advised. The boy complied. It was still on the floor when they left.

Recently I was waiting for a bus in Toronto when a pack of pre-teen girls carrying bags of McFood emerged from the subway. They leaned against a nearby retaining wall and proceeded to wolf down their pink-slime burgers. Despite the presence of a large garbage can a few feet away they all threw their leftover food, condiments and cups on the sidewalk. Partway through their feast the city worker responsible for keeping the area clean came by and swept up the mess. As soon as he was out of sight they tossed the rest of their garbage on the sidewalk and howled with laughter.

Yesterday I was out running when I came across an ice cream bar wrapper on the sidewalk. There were still flecks of unmelted ice cream on it, so I figured it must have been discarded only moments before. Half a block ahead of me a 12-year-old boy was pushing his bicycle up a hill. I jogged over to him and asked: “Did you just eat an ice cream bar?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Is that the wrapper back there on the sidewalk?”

“Yeah.”

“You shouldn’t throw your garbage on the ground. That’s called pollution, and it’s bad for our community.”

He thought about it for a second and then grinned.

“Okay.” He rode back to the wrapper and put it in his pocket.

Perhaps there’s hope for the future after all.

My Organic Patient

I’m back in the emergency department, my home away from home. Run, rabbit, run… .

Mrs. Organic and her 14-year-old daughter are waiting to see me in cubicle B. Organic Jr. has a suspicious-looking mole they’d like to have looked at. It’s black, irregular and raised. Lately it’s gotten a bit bigger.

“Well, I think this mole needs to be removed. It’s a little too busy for me to do it right now, but if you like I can take it off tomorrow afternoon.”

“How is that done?” O.J. inquires.

“I inject some local anaesthetic, remove the mole with a scalpel and then sew up the skin.”

“How is the anaesthetic developed?”

“What?”

“How is the local anaesthetic manufactured? Do they use any live animals in the testing of it?”

“Our little Organic Jr. is very much against anything that’s bad for the environment and endangered ecosystems,” her mom pipes up. She’s practically glowing with pride.

“I have no idea how it’s manufactured.”

“Do you think I could have the procedure done without any freezing?” O.J. asks hopefully.

As long as you don’t wiggle around and scream too much! Your Birkenstocks might fall off!

“I wouldn’t really recommend that – it would be quite painful for you.”

“I think I’ll research it on the Internet and then decide.”

“That sounds like a great idea! I’ll await your call!”

The Wonderful World of Golf

Today my golf game was more frightening than The Exorcist. Anyone following me around with a movie camera would have had an instant horror classic on their hands. Divots the size of meteorites. Drives that dribbled to a halt less than 10 feet away. Missed putts any fetus could have sunk. Bizarre sideways shots that defied all known laws of physics. And let’s not forget those complete whiffs that left me looking like The Incredible Human Pretzel. I was so pitiful, even the blackflies stayed away from me. It didn’t always used to be this way. Believe it or not, I coulda been a contender. This is my sad tale.

I used to shake my head at golfers and their harebrained marches down the fairway. Who in their right mind would voluntarily spend hours of prime time chasing an irrelevant little dimpled ball all over hell’s half acre? Obsessive nutbars, that’s who. “Get a life!” I’d feel like yelling every time I passed a platoon of fanatics in Bermuda shorts traipsing around a golf course.

Near the end of my first year in medical school some of my classmates decided they were going to learn how to golf. They invited me to join them. Naturally, I declined. “A group of golfing doctors?” I scoffed. “How cliché can you get? Thanks, but no thanks.”  Over the years many more invitations came my way, but I avoided them all like the plague.

Last summer my sister-in-law and her husband somehow managed to coerce me into playing a round of golf with them. As I prepared to tee off on the first hole I remember thinking, “This is going to be brutal.” It wasn’t. By the end of the game I was golf’s newest convert. I began hanging out at the local driving range. Within a month I was cranking out fairly consistent 200 yard drives. True, they were often directionally challenged, but let’s not quibble over details, okay? I bought a set of clubs and started playing regularly. To my surprise, I wasn’t half bad! My drives, chips, sand work and putts, though rough and unpolished, were respectable enough for a newb. Several regulars commented that my game had Potential. Delusions of future Tigerhood filled my head.

In October, cold weather terminated our short northern golf season. I put my clubs away reluctantly. “Next year will be awesome,” I told myself.

Come the spring my game picked up right where it had left off. Each outing was a little better than the one before. One evening I arrived at the course with hopes of getting a few holes in before dusk. I was preparing to tee off when a voice behind me said, “Mind if I join you?”

I turned around to see one of my patients.

“Certainly,” I replied.

My drive went 180 yards. His topped 300. I was impressed. We hopped into his cart and zoomed down the fairway. At the end of the first hole my score was six and his was three.

He led off on the second hole with another towering 300-yard blast. As I set my ball on the tee he said, “Would you care for some advice?”

“Sure!” Any tips from a player of his stature could only serve to strengthen my game, right?