Justin Trudeau ran, screaming, out of a bar in British Columbia, chased by an angry crowd of Canadians. Eventually, out of puff and steam, he collapsed onto a park bench, under a towering statue of himself, a kilometre away, beside a bedraggled homeless woman, with five young ragamuffin skinny children, playing around her on the grass.

Finally, when Trudeau regained his breath, he burst into tears. “After all I’ve done, after all I’ve done!” he moaned, holding his tear-stained face in his hands.

“Now, now, ‘soon-to-be-former’ Prime Minister, you’ll get through it,” the caring woman comforted him, patting him on the shoulder, bringing a moment of composure after his involuntary recoil from a commoner’s touch.

“I did so much, so much!” and this is how they thank me…” he began sobbing uncontrollably. “Thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions…, steel…” he spluttered, before howling as he drowned in his inconsolable sadness, nay, misery.

“Jobs, steel industry jobs, sir?” the woman proffered.

“Don’t insult me woman!” Trudeau barked, “Statues, millions of statues of myself, now erected all over Canada, in the parks, on the street corners, on top of buildings, they’re everywhere,” he said, gloatingly.

“How can that not be a lot of tons of steel, sir?” the woman was genuinely perplexed.

“Women!” Trudeau exclaimed. “It all came from China, heaps cheaper than the Canadian stuff,” Trudeau was brightening up.

“Well, all those sculptors, a million statues, that’s a lot of jobs for Canadians,” the woman continued.

“That was all done in India, we saved a truck load!” Trudeau exuded. “I had every statue galvanised, yes, galvanised, they’ll last forever!”

Having another go, the woman queried, “How many Canadians must have been involved doing the galvanising, sir, that’s a huge enterprise.”

“Oh silly woman! I had them all dipped in Bangladesh, too toxic for Canada.”

Feeling rather upsettingly irritated, the kind and patient woman replied, “Don’t Bangledeshi’s matter, sir?”

In a flash Trudeau came back, “Arr, durr…!”

The sound of the approaching angry crowd lifted, carried along with the gentle breeze, and he broke down again.

Through another torrent of sobs, “I gave my all, what ungrateful bastards my Canadian subjects are! Metallurgy, zinc, zinc, so much zinc…”

The kindness of this long-suffering lady of misfortune knew no bounds, and she took off her threadbare musty shawl, which she crocheted years ago from opportunity shop scraps of acrylic, and put it over the now shivering Prime Minister’s bare shoulders, who, for some reason, was wearing only a vivid pink and chartreuse mankini, with sparkly threads of gold, adorned with the occasional scarlet tassle, and edged with royal purple frills, dominated by a large fluffy ruby pompom covering his foofoo.

“This rag stinks!” Trudeau exclaimed, while pulling it tighter around himself.

Mustering her courage, as she gazed upon her hungry unwashed children, she presented, “Prime Minister, the cost of living in Canada has skyrocketed. I cannot afford bread for my children, nor can thousands of other Canadians; Justin, vulnerable woman to powerful man, what will you do about this?”

Trudeau reflected for a moment, and replied, “Let them eat cake!”, unsuccessfully trying to stifle a throaty giggle.

Shocked and pained, the dear woman wiped a tear from her own eye, with a dirty handkerchief, processing what manner of soul she was conversing with.

With the noise of the agitated crowd growing louder, Trudeau burst into tears again.

The homeless lady took her thin gloves off, tenderly took Trudeau’s hands in her hands, with what feeble strength she had, and, as she felt the precious warmth leave her calloused and cracked fingers into his smooth and delicate manicured hands, his fingers tipped with bright pink painted nails dusted with scarlet glitter, she looked deep and long into the eyes of the most beautiful man in the world.

Her face bore the stamp of years of struggle, sacrifice, and penury, from the outpouring of kindness to her children, and unstinting giving to and sharing with, countless homeless families like herself, the furrows and lines failing to conceal a compassionate visage crafted by a long-experience of inner illumination of selfless love. Holding his hands, with a matchless forbearance, she uttered, softly, “Mr prime minister, please get the fuck out of BC!”

To which Trudeau replied, “Have a wonderful day, white trailer trash, ma,am!”, as he departed, just ahead of the crowd, bent on exacting vengeance upon him.

“Yeah, you suck!”, the woman said, under her breath, as she turned her mind on what to find to feed her cold and hungry little ones that night.

That was the seventeenth in my EK’s Funny Bone series. EK Lippenmeyer, Perth’s northern suburbs, Western Australia, this Friday 10th January, 2025.