Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

For the love of God, Montresor!

Tuesday, Jun. 9, 2009
11:52 p.m.
Some time ago, Hubby was invited by the Quebec arts council to submit an application for a prize of $5,000 to be awarded to someone who had received grants in the past (but not in the recent past) in recognition of contributions to arts and culture in our region. This entailed quite a lot of work on his part, putting the dossier together, having it translated into French, and getting it in before the deadline (which is another story), and he was informed that the prize would be awarded on today’s date, and please have a brief speech ready in the event he received it.

It was pissing rain today, cold rain, not a nice day at all to be out, but Hubby, Little Princess and I made the trek downtown, he in hopefulness and we to support our principal breadwinner. The venue was an old theatre done in a Spanish style. The orchestra is full of tables and chairs now and concerts are held on stage. I’ve performed there in the past and been to see Little Princess’ band there on two occasions. We were made to wait in the lobby and offered amuses gueules, which roughly translates as “palate teasers”, and given free tickets for a drink from the bar. Hubby got two of these, and gave them to both Little Princess and me, so he ended up with nothing and we each got a beer. The tongue-teasing morsels were meringue sandwiches from the chocolaterie across the street: delicious, but not exactly lunch fare.

In the meantime, the arts council members and invited guests were getting a delicious lunch in the theatre. We watched waiters carrying trays of soup and other delicacies while we cooled our heels waiting for something to happen. In fact, I got so tired of cooling my heels that I sat on a chair, closed my eyes, and imagined I were elsewhere and otherwise occupied.

Finally, after an hour’s wait, we were told to enter the theatre so the prize winner could be announced. Various people made speeches, including the winner from last year, who revealed to us that she had in fact received a phone call informing her of her win. The recipient of this year’s cheque could not be present, but had sent a video of himself giving an acceptance speech. With this information revealed to us, we realized that since Hubby had had not got a phone call, his presence was not required, our presence was equally redundant, and we had effectively wasted one and-a-half hours of our life for a beer and several meringue cookies. Now we know!



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