Frankenstein's Monster is Just Another Abandoned Child

            On Saturday morning during song practice the leather strip that ties my guitar strap to the top of my guitar broke. It’s an odd coincidence because a couple of days before the bottom of the strap broke. Maybe the dryness of the apartment in the winter makes the leather more brittle. It only took ten minutes to cut another strip from an old pair of leather pants and to have support again. The previous strip had a little more slack though so now my guitar is slightly higher on my body and it feels a bit weird. It might be just a matter of getting used to it.

            I was about five minutes later to the food bank than usual. The line-up was a little longer than last time but not that much.

            The guy that looks like Charles Manson arrived with someone I hadn’t seen there before. He was a young guy, perhaps in his early thirties and he approached me to shake my hand and wish me all the best for the new year. I thanked him but told him that I hope he doesn’t wish anyone else “all the best” because then one of us would have to settle for second best since only one of us can have the best, unless the best is somehow made by a machine and there are thousands of identical best things around, but that’s unlikely. He told me that he is from Afghanistan and that he’s been in Canada since 2010. He said the winters were difficult at first but he likes Canada now. He said his name is Parviz and he asked me mine. When I told him my name is Christian he asked me if I was a Christian. I told him that I don’t believe in god but that I still consider myself a Christian because even when one gets rid of all the dogma the values still remain. I would say that someone with Christian values but no Christian dogma is actually a better Christian than someone that goes around rattling their chains of faith. Parviz said that he used to be an atheist but now he believes in god and considers himself a Muslim because it must have been god that made the human mind. I didn’t argue with him because it’s impossible for logic to debate with belief, but there’s no reason why all life, including human consciousness could not have occurred by accident. It’s a lot more plausible than a deity having created a universe out of itself just so it could love itself from a distance.

            I asked Parviz if he goes to the mosque and he said guiltily that he doesn’t. I reminded him that there is a little mosque here in Parkdale near Brock and Queen. But a lot of Muslims are just like many Christians in that they can still consider themselves practitioners of their faith without worshipping in a building contrived for that purpose.

            It was a cold day and I had to keep my winter gloves on while reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I spent a lot more time than usual while waiting, just reading, though eventually the cold did seep into my gloved fingertips. I almost finished the book there and I did actually finish it a little later that day. It's essentially a story about child abandonment, the type of child that results from lack of parental responsibility and the effect that such actions have upon society. The angering thing is that the parent in this story, the scientist that created the monster and effectively was both its mother and father, did not realize even to his dying breath that the most monstrous thing regarding the creature was his own rejection of it after bringing it into the world. He could have nurtured it and given it a sense of belonging but instead cast it out like a powerful unguided missile of raw emotion into the world. We know from the story that after parental rejection, the monster’s first contact with humans was the violence that they inflicted upon him and to which he responded by running away rather than retaliating. When the monster finally did lash out it was only at his creator’s loved ones in order to take away from him that which he had effectively denied his own child.

            At one point Martina the doorkeeper walked up to someone that was smoking and asked her to step away from the line. If that’s a new policy it’s welcome.

            When I was near the front of the line, a few people left the building with their groceries while Martina was still downstairs. At one point Robbie called out that five people could go down and I asked him if he was sure. He said he was and I guess because I was cold I listened to him and went ahead. On my way downstairs I saw Martina and asked her if I could go in. She said I could, but it felt like I had jumped the gun a bit because I was ahead of a couple of people that had been in front of me. At the reception desk the African woman with the cart that looks like a tall, red milk carton on wheels, confronted me about being ahead of her. I told her she could of course go ahead of me.

            My volunteer at the shelves was a short, young guy with an afro, whom I hadn't seen before.

            The first set of shelves contained a lot of tiny items from Chef’s Plate such as little packages of ingredients and spices and small containers of various sauces that are normally delivered with some of their recipes along with the main items of meat, fish or vegetables. I took three little bags of sunflower seeds.

            I also grabbed three dark chocolate macaroon granola bars.

            The cereals were mostly Cheerios and a couple of other conventional brands, but there were also boxes of Dorset meusli and so I took the kind with raisins, dates, sunflower seeds, coconut and hazelnuts.

            There were a variety of canned beans, vegetables and soups, but I just selected a tin of chickpeas.

            The woman ahead of me was at Angie’s section and there were two litre containers of milk. She got extra milk because she was shopping for four but Angie turned her down when she asked for one more. She was just about to move away when Angie offered me some milk and I asked if I could give mine to the lady in front of me. At first Angie was reluctant but then she let me pass it on.

            I got four small fruit bottom yogourts and the usual three eggs. Angie gave me a pack of twenty marble cheese slices and a small tub of soft margarine. She handed me a 354-gram tub of potato and egg salad, which she said, was “to die for!” and a bag containing about ten slices of what looked like homemade cheesecake, adding, “For your waistline!”

            As usual I turned down the generic frozen ground chicken and frozen hot dogs.

            While waiting for Sylvia to finish serving the woman in front of me I dipped into the bread bin to tong out a couple of cheese bagels and a focaccia bun.      I still had lots of potatoes and carrots but I let Sylvia give me two apples, two limes and five tomatoes. Most of the tomatoes however were too ripe to eat. 

            As I was unlocking my bike the woman I’d given my milk to stopped to comment that there’s not much being offered at the food bank lately. I said, “Well, the holidays are over and so there are less donations.”

            On a normal Saturday I would have gone back out to the supermarket after putting my food away, but there was no time because I had to take my bicycle to Bike Pirates to fix a wobble in my back tire.

            Dave opened up about ten minutes late, which is usual for him on Saturdays. He confirmed that the axel on my back rim was broken. I asked if it was strange that I’d just bought a new axel last summer after another break and he said that it shouldn’t break so soon. Once I’d removed the axel he had a look at the rim and assessed that there was a rough area in the hub that might be causing my axels to wear out. I decided to just buy a new back wheel, and since I’d bought a new front wheel in November, this was the first time I’d had new rims on this bike. Buying a new rim saved me a lot of time, since I didn’t have to install an axel, which would have involved the extra time of fiddling with ball bearings, so I was at Bike Pirates for just under two hours.

            Speaking of ball bearings, when I was removing my old axel, Dave handed me a little wand that was a powerful magnet to use to pull out the bearings from the hub. It worked very well but I was wondering why after all these years at Bike Pirates of digging ball bearings out by hand I hadn’t been given that instrument before. Dave said not everyone there knows where everything is.

            The new wheel cost $50 and the rim tape was $2. I donated $18, gave them $80 and got back one of the new Viola Desmond $10 bills.

            Bike Pirates has a little computer system now in which they keep a database of what customers have done and how much they donate. I was told that soon they would get rid of the paper work sheets all together.

            As soon as I left Bike Pirates I rode straight to No Frills where they were having their $1.88 sale. The half pints of raspberries were $1.88 but the grapes were regular priced. They were of a better quality than last week though. The only other item I got for $1.88 was cinnamon-raisin bread. I also bought mouthwash and yogourt.

            At the automated checkout there was a guy complaining about the price for a pint of blueberries. He’d thought that pints were on sale for $1.88. When I’d gone by the blueberries it was clear to me that the half pints were the ones that were $1.88 but he was still yelling about the deception when I left.

            When I got home there was a receipt for my December rent under my door but none for January.

            I heated a bowl of chilli for lunch and had it with a toasted cheese bagel.

            In the evening I did some sewing on my guitar strap to make sure it won’t break off again in the near future.

            I had a fried egg with a toasted cheese bagel and a beer for dinner while watching two episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

            In the first story there is discussion about the fact that no research could prove Sheldon’s string theories but Leonard suggests that he could theoretically demonstrate it by creating a microscopic blackhole. The only problem is that it would cost half a $billion to fund. Sheldon starts selling his comic books and then goes to Vegas to use his brain to beat the games but he is so obvious in telling the casino staff that is his plan that he is quickly escorted elsewhere.

            Meanwhile Amy is shopping for her wedding dress and she takes Penny and Bernadette along for help. There are a couple in which she looks gorgeous but she settles on an over the top and very modest southern bell type dress with an over abundance of ruffles. Penny and Bernadette hate her choice but only Penny says so. Amy is hurt and Penny has to realize that it’s Amy's day and her choice. When Sheldon sees the dress he loves it because Amy looks like a pile of swans.

            In the second story Sheldon’s mother refuses to come to his wedding unless he invites his older brother George. George is a much more down to Earth member of the family who owns a chain of tire stores. The problem is that the two haven’t spoken in years. Leonard goes with Sheldon to Texas to try to help repair the rift. George complains that everything the family did had been a sacrifice to protect Sheldon. Sheldon apologizes and George agrees to attend the wedding.

Meanwhile, as Amy’s wedding approaches, everyone but Penny gets pink eye from Bernadette and Howard’s children. Everyone is mad at Penny.