You read it here first
The Guelph Mercury, 12/20/2008
You didn’t ask for it, but like a flu virus, you’re going to get it anyway. So, without further delay, here are the Mercer Retort’s predictions for 2009:
1. The economic downturn will continue to hammer Guelph, reducing wait times for a parking spot at Stone Road Mall from 20 minutes to 15. Real estate prices will drop dramatically, meaning you will finally be able to buy a one-car garage in the south end for less than $300,000. House extra.
2. The opening of Guelph’s civic administration building will be delayed again after the new contractor and city staff disagree on which paint colour to use in the men’s washroom. Alberici Constructors Ltd. will take the city the court, arguing that Japanese Lilac and Happy Hyacinth are actually the same shade.
3. City council will approve a property tax increase. Well, duh.
4. MP Frank Valeriote will decide a governing coalition of opposition parties is not in the country’s best interest. Then he will decide that a governing coalition of opposition parties is in the country’s best interest. Oh wait, that already happened.
5. Michael Ignatieff will un-invite then reinvite Valeriote to his slumber party at Stornoway, where they planned to eat Cocoa Puffs out of Stéphane Dion’s hollowed out skull and watch Gilmore Girls.
6. Swept up in the spirit of nonpartisanship running through Ottawa, Stephen Harper will release MP Michael Chong from the underground dungeon he’s been keeping him in since Chong publicly said he was disappointed with the Conservative party. He will also return Ignatieff’s iPod, which he stole when the pair met earlier this month. He will do so only after he downloads Do You Believe in Magic by The Lovin’ Spoonful onto his computer. Admittedly, this is a long shot.
7. Michael Chong will be returned to the dungeon after not whooping loudly enough following a speech by Harper during question period.
8. Student protestors will either (a) burn something in effigy in front of city hall; (b) camp out in St. George’s Square or (c) blame the police for everything wrong in Guelph. More likely it will be all of the above.
9. The Mercer Retort’s request for an economic bailout package will be denied by the federal government, the same day Chrysler, General Motors and Ford announce plans for a new, supersized class of SUV that is powered by eating tiny electric cars.
10. The Toronto Blue Jays will sign the shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist to their starting rotation, and will finish in fourth place in the American League East. Beers will still cost $28.50 at the Rogers Centre.
11. The Guelph Mercury will run a large graphic of something on its front page.
12. Tired of the slow pace of elected officials responding to the economic crisis, Linamar Corp. chief executive Linda Hasenfratz will bail out Chrysler, General Motors and Ford on her own. She will afford this by bringing her lunch to work every day for a year, instead of eating out.
13. The Mercer Retort’s request for an economic bailout package from Linda Hasenfratz will be denied.
14. Strangely, graves uncovered under the Church of Our Lady Immaculate by construction workers will be found to contain no bodies, only the entire New Kids on the Block discography, marked “property of Father Dennis Noon.”
15. Wal-Mart will buy the Guelph Farmers Market and convert it into an assembly plant that makes robotic Chinese workers. Tube socks will now cost $1.85 a dozen instead of $2.
16. People wearing homemade, animal product-free hemp clothing will protest the loss of a place to buy organically grown, locally harvested, environmentally friendly fair-trade spelt. They will retire for the evening to listen to James Gordon records.
17. Mercer Retort readers will use Google to find out what spelt is.
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