In the middle of Monday I looked
in my drawer for a manila envelope and discovered that I still had a couple
from the turn of the century when I tried sending poetry to magazines. I
counted out twenty-five pages of blank, letter-sized paper and slid them into
the envelope with two staples, and then I rode up the street to the post office
to get the postage. I told the clerk that it was going to be self-addressed and
local but he still asked me for a postal code. While I was asking him why a
different postal code would make a difference in the price within Toronto, his
more experienced colleague quickly weighed my envelope and told me it would be
$2.95. So I bought the stamps and then went to the supermarket.
I
won’t be eating vegetable protein until Wednesday, so I bought more fruit and
salad fixings. I stood in a checkout line behind an old man who smelled like
he’d been smoking in the same clothes for years. He didn’t have many more items
than me but he turned to me anyway and said that I could go ahead of him. Then
he moved to another line-up.
As
I was riding home along Queen under the railroad bridge I noticed on the
building there that’s been vacant for years a sign saying that a Metro
supermarket will be opening in that location soon. I find Metro rarely has
prices low enough that I’d want to shop there, but I guess they’ll get business
from the Parkdale colonizing gentry.
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