Tai Chi

            Because I’d had to work to finish an essay on “What is Art?” all day Thursday October 27th, I couldn’t go to the food bank that day. That’s why I went there on Saturday, October 29th instead. Before I even left my place, I started to think that Saturday was better than Thursday for such a visit. On Thursdays in order to get an early number one has to stand in line for an hour and a half and then come back at 13:30, so it already eats up a good chunk of the day. But on Saturday, one has to wait only about an hour for a number, and then come back for food at 11:30. That alone is better.

            Another benefit, at least on this Saturday, was that no one was smoking at all for the first half hour I was there. The women from the Caribbean that took seats around the door were all non-smokers. This contrasts to Thursday when the door seems to be the epicentre of the smoke.

            There was an elderly, but healthy looking man, who looked Tibetan, doing Tai Chi near the parked cars inside the driveway.

The woman with her dog named “Chilo” was there as was the woman with her black cat named “Powder” called “Powder” on a leash. Chilo kept dancing on against his leash on his hind legs because he wanted to go and play with Powder, but his caregiver help him back because she didn’t want him to get his face scratched.

The Saturday food bank customers don’t seem to rely entirely on memory to keep their places in line. They put their carts and bags in a line and then go to stand or sit elsewhere. The woman with the dog took a small cardboard fruit carton from the garbage and placed it on her spot.

There was some anger being expressed by some customers at a Tibetan woman who had positioned herself ahead of where she was supposed to be. She seemed to not understand English but some others were sure that was a ploy to evoke sympathy. One tall guy was particularly annoyed with her and made frequent outbursts either about her to the elderly Caribbean or directly to her while she sat over on the fireplace.

The man in front of me was there for the first time. He was surprised to hear that customers have to wait once for numbers and then wait again later on for their food. He said he’d never seen a food bank that works like that and he has volunteered at several. He told me that he’d just gotten a job as the property manager of a high-rise apartment building on Jameson. He said the place has gone through five superintendents this year because it’s such hard work. He’s from Toronto originally, but his wife is from Winnipeg where he has also worked as a property manager.

The food bank began letting two people at a time go inside to get coffee. The guy in front of me went inside and then when he came out, he told me that they were letting him get his food early because he had an appointment.

As we got close to number time, the customers joined their carts and bags and since the guy in front of me was gone I took my new place behind the woman with the dog.

Further up the line, the tall guy was still complaining about the Tibetan woman. She patted him on the shoulder from behind and he told her, “Stop hitting me!” The man who’d been doing Tai Chi said something to her in her language that sounded gentle and encouraging.

When the Tibetan woman was let in to get a number, one of the Caribbean women went in to tell the reception people not to give her a number because she was ahead of her proper place.

I got number 13, and though it would be only 45 minutes from that point till they opened, I went home for a while to finish the coffee I’d had to let get cold beside my computer.

When I got back to the food bank, it wasn’t too long before I was inside and shopping. Unlike on Wednesdays and Thursdays, the person that called and took my number wasn’t the one that guided me through the first shelves. My helper was someone I’d never seen before.

Behind the cake mixes and the taco kits at the top of the first set of shelves was the top of a red plastic bottle. With the advantage of being tall I reached up and over to get the bottle of French’s ketchup. Further down I took a box of cheddar flavoured rice thin crackers. From the bottom I got two small packages of Fibre-1 blueberry crumble and a couple of handfuls of little Hershey’s chocolate hockey pucks.

As usual, I took no pasta, rice or sauce. I took a can of chickpeas, a carton of vegetable broth and a bag of some kind of small, round, beige coloured dried beans. They looked like chickpeas, but they were much smaller than in the can. Maybe that’s because they expand when they absorb water.

There was no tuna or any kind of canned fish this time around.

I took a box of Shreddies instead of Cheerios and she gave me three small packages of brown sugar and cinnamon instant Quaker oatmeal.

Across the aisle I was surprised to see the vegetable lady minding the cold section. She explained that is her Saturday job, so I guess I’ll have to stop calling her the vegetable lady. She gave me two half litres of 2% milk, six small fruit bottom yogourts, five eggs, a tube of frozen ground chicken and a choice of salads. I took the Thai mango salad with carrot-miso dressing. It turned out to be off, though.

There was another unfamiliar face minding the bread. I had plenty at home, so I told her I didn’t need any. She said, “That’s okay!” I patted her shoulder and asked if I’d broken her heart. She told me, “Just kidding!”

The Tibetan woman was ahead of me in the vegetable section. She kept on asking for more of the items that she’d been given, but the woman in charge of the section kept teller her “No!” adding that, “If you get more, everybody else gets nothing!”

            The Saturday vegetable lady gave me six potatoes, three carrots, several garden fresh radishes, a red onion and one apple. From a bin in front of her I took a butternut squash. She asked if I wanted a bag of salad, so I said I did. Then I think she remembered that she’d forgotten to give the Tibetan woman some salad, but she grumbled in a Jamaican accent, “Let her get her own damn salad!”