“Sorry I’m late,” said Cliff Murray the other morning when he joined the others already sitting at the table at Mabel’s Grill.
    “There was a tree across my concession from the storm last night so I had to drive around the block.”
    “Yeah, there’s been so much wind lately, hasn’t there?” said Dave Winston.
    “I suppose we can blame climate change for that,” said Molly Whiteside as she poured Cliff’s coffee and topped up the others’.
    “Or politicians!” grumbled George Mackenzie.
    Molly didn’t issue her normal warning about not talking about politics. Mabel had explained to her she didn’t mind people complaining about politicians in general. “After all, if there’s one thing to bring people together it’s blaming politicians for everything that’s wrong with the country. It’s only when they start discussing which politician is to blame for everything that’s wrong that we get arguments.”  
    “So how come politicians are to blame for the storms we’ve had, not climate change?” Dave wondered.
    “You think it’s just a coincidence that the stormiest weather of the year happened during an election campaign? I mean the weather guys say it’s hot air that’s to blame for these hurricanes and tornadoes, don’t they?” George asked rhetorically. “And what’s been the biggest source of hot air the last month or so – the politicians in the election campaign.
    “And the gas from my cattle burping is always getting blamed for adding to climate change. Well how about all those gasbags spouting off for six weeks or so?”
    “So we should have wished they’d had the election in January so things would be warmer because of the political hot air during the campaign?” Molly asked.
    “Nah, they’d probably just have caused one of those old-fashioned stormy winters,” George grumbled. “Politicians always seem to make things worse.”
    “So how was your birthday?” Dave asked Cliff after Molly had taken their breakfast orders and gone back to the kitchen. “Any interesting presents?”
    “My sister got me one of those Ancestry kits to trace my background,” said Cliff.
    “I did one of those,” said Dave. “Mostly there were no surprises – Scots, Irish, English and a bit of Swiss. The one shock was they said I was two percent Chinese. I mean how do you get a drop of Chinese DNA in all those European ancestors? You think somebody could have eaten too much Chinese food or something?” he chuckled.
    “Probably the company threw that in just to get you to sign on for more,” said Cliff. “I mean all I did was send in my test and register online and I started getting daily e-mails trying to get me to buy  extras.”
    “Kinda like all the charities that you give to once and they bury you with letters asking for more,” said George. “Except with e-mails they’re not even helping to keep Canada Post financially viable like the charities.”
    “Yeah,” said Cliff, “and the gifts the charities keep sending! If I used all the mailing labels I’ve been sent in the last five years Canada Post would have record profits.”
    “Well I’m tempted to follow up this DNA thing a little further,” said Dave. “I mean wouldn’t it be amazing if it turned out I was related to that Chinese family that’s feuding right now?”
    Seeing the blank looks on the guys’ faces Dave went on to explain that there’s a feud going on between the 80-year-old father and the son of a Chinese family that owns Smithfield Foods, the U.S company that owns and processes a huge amount of the pigs in the U.S..
    “Huh, and I thought the Chinese were communists,” said George. “So all this talk about how good communism is, is  just hot air?”
    “Actually, they save us from hot air“ said Cliff. “Their politicians don’t need to get elected so they don’t need to waste their breath – if you think that’s an advantage..”◊