Sunday, 4 September 2016

The Dividers That Unite Us

           


            It was a hot muggy Tuesday evening on July 5th when I started my bike ride.
            On Inglewood, north of St Clair, a couple of teenage boys were playing catch. Then later, when I turned into an alley near Bayview and Fleming Crescent, a couple of middle-aged men were playing catch. In the same laneway a small garage had a sign saying, “Grumpy’s Garage”. I rode along Field Avenue past the lower middle class homes until McRae, then I went back to Bayview and took my usual route to Yonge.
            I stopped at Jesters at Yonge and St Clair. I didn’t have to pee that bad but I figured I might as well. It was a relief to slick my hair back with cold water before continuing home.
            I stopped at Freshco to buy fruit, a chicken, a pack of sliced hot salami and some yogourt. A little boy in the fruit section enthusiastically pointed to some green globe grapes, but his mother, in a Latin American accent said to him that the grapes were from Mexico and “We don’t buy grapes from Mexico.” In the line-up there was a pretty young woman trying to manoeuvre her shopping cart into the cashier’s lane by pulling it from the front but the back was too far to the left. I lifted it over for her. She thanked me but didn’t put down the bar for me to divide our groceries.
            I always think that those bars would have provided a great opportunity for a skit on “Curb Your Enthusiasm”. Something like, “I put the bar down for you and you didn’t thank me!” “But the bar keeps you from having to pay for my groceries!” “It’s common courtesy to acknowledge someone when they put the bar down for you!” and so on.
            There was a short, large, well-dressed middle-aged woman at the end of the belt packing her groceries and she was taking forever. Several people had paid for their groceries and gone while she was still there. When I got beside her I could see that she was meticulously selecting each item to find the perfect place to fit it into her bag. She was also talking to herself a bit.

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