One of the earliest things I remember learning from my very good parents is that life isn’t fair and I should get used to that.
Having learned the lesson well, I’d still like to remind my parents of the dog we never got and give them advance notice that I’ll be getting in touch with Ontario’s Fairness Commissioner, Jean Augustine, some time soon.
I didn’t know about the Fairness Commissioner, but an add for “Women of Influence” in Macleans caught my eye. There it says that Ms. Augustine has a veritable Passion for Fairness.
So I’m confident she will be interested in my story: How badly I wanted a dog, and how we never got one. No we didn’t. It’s still hard for me, as I consider the diary entries written about the dog we didn’t have, the plaintive pleas. The friends who had dogs. You get the picture.
My second thought was: This is totalitarian territory. A Fairness Commission? Really? For what? Accountable to who?
Anyway, Mom and Dad, when the Fairness Commissioner contacts you about this, and you are annoyed, may I take this opportunity to say it’s really never too late to get a Labrador. Or a Newfoundlander. Or a German Shephard. A Spaniel? Really, I was so willing to compromise…It’s just too bad it had to come to this.
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Brigitte is thoroughly devastated: Good grief, I gotta go get me some violins…
by 
No dog? That’s an unfairness that you should probably take your parents on Oprah or Dr. Phil for!
Seriously though, I thought you were joking about the Fairness Commissioner until I clicked the link, and even at first I thought it must be a spoof website until I realised that it really was serious. Wow. That’s really special.
Now I should add that my children have a dog and find it utterly unfair that they have to walk the dog and feed the dog etc. They spend more time arguing over who will walk the dog than actually walking the dog. In fact, I think that the dog is preparing its submission to the Fairness Commissioner.
The world is not fair, but life is fair. People get what’s coming to them, sooner or later. Stories with happy endings are far more popular because deep, deep, down inside, that’s what people want. A happy ending is when the good guys win, the bad guys loose. Even if a man plays a million tricks, tells a million lies, he’ll still get caught by life, and justice will be done. This is not a proof, because faith is what a human being is supposed to search for.
I’d like to donate a copy of Alasdair MacIntyre’s ‘Whose Justice? Which Rationality?’ to the commission. (As well as start a collection for Andrea’s puppy.)
I especially support the idea of starting a collection for Andrea’s puppy. Everyone should have a puppy (this is really beyond the idea of fairness, it’s fact).