My first curmudgeon

It’s about this time each year I start to think back about the first real curmudgeon I ever met.

Lloyd was always hanging around over at my friend Bob’s place, having tea with Mrs. Turner. I suppose he was retired from the mine, but I never knew him well enough to ask.

He was a portly man – about 300 lbs, with big, meaty hands and an exterior as gruff as it comes. He chewed tobacco and always had some brown drool leaking from the corner of his scowling maw. 

One day I went to pick up Bob and Lloyd was at his usual spot at the kitchen table.

Mrs. Turner called upstairs for Bob and I waited by the door.

Bob came downstairs and was tying his shoes when Lloyd asked, “Why isn’t the boy in school?”

“It’s a holiday,” Mrs. Turner replied. “Victoria Day.”

“Victoria Day? Are they still dragging that dead whore around?” Lloyd spat back.

Bob and I sniggered our way outside and almost fell over laughing.

So every Victoria Day after that we would always go out of our way to set each other up to repeat Lloyd’s fond remembrance of  Britian’s longest sitting monarch.

“Long weekend? What’s the holiday?”