Reunion

           

            On Monday in the early afternoon I rode to Sneaky Dees to get together with my old band mate Brian Haddon for the first time in about fifteen months. We each had a couple of pints and shared an order of guac and chips as we talked about stuff that’s been happening, plus doodads of mutual interest.

            I brought a couple of pictures of Paul Valliere along because I was curious if Brian remembered him from the days of the Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy. He didn’t know him but did remember the name and the face.

            Brian and I used to have a mutual interest in comic books but I don’t have time for them anymore and he just downloads them, but he caught me up on some of the latest storylines in some of the Thor comics.

            In general, regardless of topic, it was nice to sit and have a beer with an intelligent old friend.

            Brian, in addition to modelling for art classes like I do, has a small business of fixing computers. I told him that I was thinking of buying a DVD burner, since all I have on my computer is a player. I’m glad I brought it up because I was worried about the expense of getting something like that installed or of screwing up my computer while trying to do it myself. He said I could just get a portable DVD Writer that plugs into a USB port. That way, if I change computers I’d still have the hardware and it’d save me the hassle of installing something. Since there’s already a player on my system there’s no need to install something extra.

            We were in the bar for about three hours and when the bill came, Brian surprised me by slapping fourty dollars on top of it and telling me to leave the tip. That was nice!

            As we were saying our goodbyes on College Street, an enormous black van, just short of being a bus, pulled up. The side door opened, revealing guys in every seat. One of them got out, like it was his stop, but kept them from leaving for a while as he was looking for something that he thought he might have left in the vehicle. It looked like some kind of private, non-commercial transport, as it didn’t look like any of the passengers really knew each other. Maybe it served take workers to and from a distant job.

            On the way home, because of the beer, I had to pee and so I decided not to stop at Freshco. But as I got closer to the supermarket I had an even stronger urge to urinate, so I stopped there anyway to use the washroom. The express cashier didn’t have the key, so I waited by the washroom door for several minutes. I was about to walk away when an employee saw me, kicked the door to see if anyone was inside and opened it for me. Someone had used the key but left it in the tray on the little door shelf. When I came out a young woman was already waiting to use the facilities as well.

            Once my bladder was clear and comfortable I thought that I might as well shop. I happened to have a No Frills flyer in my backpack and did some price matching. I asked about matching a package of chicken leg quarters that they were offering for a fixed price of $7.00 to a No Frills price that would have gotten them for probably less than $6.00, but I was told that one couldn’t match on fixed prices. I was though able to get an 800-gram package of lean ground beef, priced at $10.00 for about $7.00 by matching it to the No Frills price.