As the line moved
and I got closer to the door, Joe came out and was about to smoke a cigarette
while standing in the doorway. Fortunately, his lighting up was delayed by
conversations until I got inside.
There were two
receptionists on duty, and I would normally have gone to the one furthest over
because it seems like the polite thing to do. But as I approached, I saw that
it was the guy who couldn’t find my name on the system a couple of weeks
before, so I veered instead towards the woman that already knows my name. I got
number 23.
Outside, beside the tree where I tend to
lock my bike, there has been a brown Muskoka chair for the last few weeks.
Whenever I come to get a number I always see a young African guy sitting there,
wearing a suit jacket over a white shirt but with no tie. He had a very
expensive looking pair of cowboy style boots with a chain curving down above
the back of each heel. As I passed him to get my bike, I asked him if that was
his office. He smiled slightly and nodded.
When I came back at 12:30, the guy
watching the door and calling the numbers was smoking a cigarette. I took my
camera out with the intention of taking a picture and sending it to the
chairman of the board of the food bank. The door guy was talking to someone
though, who wasn’t smoking, so I didn’t feel justified in including her in the
shot.
Once I was inside and shopping, I saw the
top of the first shelf only had a choice between the compressed olive oil spray
and a jar of Masala curry paste. The paste is actually pretty good for bumping
up soups and such, but I picked the olive oil spray.
The next shelf down just had a choice
between Triscuits and cookies. I picked the healthier item.
At the bottom there were granola bars and
some other kind of bar. My helper gave me a few of each. I didn’t see until
later that the other bars were Lucky Charms bars prepared in a similar way to
Rice Crispy squares.
The second shelf had all of the pasta,
rice and sauce, but I still didn’t need any of that.
The third shelf, where they normally have
Kraft Dinner on top and various cans of beans below was totally empty. I’ve
seen shelves close to empty at the food bank, but this was the first time I’d
ever come across one that was holding nothing. My helper told me that that’s
what happens with the beans and the pasta. The pasta will also dwindle away to
nothing eventually, and it will take a while to get more in.
From the next shelf I took a couple of
cans of tuna, but I didn’t notice till later that it was in oil instead of
water.
The top of the last shelf was full of
Apple Jacks. I asked if there was any other kind behind. He said, “Oh! You want
some of the adult stuff?” then he opened up a box and gave me a carton of
organic fruit and nut granola. I assume they just hadn’t gotten around to
stocking the cereal shelf with the good stuff.
In the cold section, Sue gave me a 1.5
litre bottle of blueberry kefir, there were some frozen egg patties, a bag of
homemade granola balls, a package of frozen organic tea pops and a choice of
several different kinds of salad, such as tabouli, bruschetta, bean and fruit.
Sue and Theresa were recommending the fruit salad. I said that fruit salads go
bad so fast. They said not if you eat it right away. Sue suggested that maybe
I’m not a fruit person. I explained that I’d rather eat fresh fruit than a
fruit salad. I took the bruschetta salad.
The bread section had nothing but several
loaves of the same kind of un-sliced white bread, so I passed.
The vegetable lady had some professionally
packaged bags of something behind her. When I asked her what was in them she
reacted like she’d forgotten about them. She told me it was frozen squash, so I
said I’d take some of that. She had potatoes, beets and questionably fresh
zucchini, but I just asked for some fruit. She said she could only give me one
orange. It was though the nicest, firmest orange I’d ever gotten from the food
bank.
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