"If You Think The Rock is Big, You Should Have Seen His Father!"

            On Thursday, September 15^th, I went to the food bank, even though my preferred day is Wednesday but though I could still easily get a number on that day before going to my Aesthetics class, I would be too late to pick up my food in the early afternoon.

            When I went to lock my bike, I had to step around a pile of very black dung, which I assumed was from a raccoon that had probably come the night before to feast on the food bank garbage.

            I asked the guy furthest from the door if he was last in line, but he shook his head. I asked if he knew who was but he said he didn’t. The next nearest person was a woman with a black cat on a red leash. She pointed to the man in the electric wheelchair over near my bike at the other end of the driveway. I found out from him who he was behind and then I was satisfied that I had a place in line. It’s too confusing to try to figure out what number you are before you get a number. I went over and stood beside the man in the wheelchair.

            There was a very large and muscular, middle aged man in a wide-brimmed leather hat and wearing a leather vest. He was hanging out beside the door with some others and dominating the conversation on the topic of professional wrestling. It turns out that he himself is a former professional wrestler. He said he started when he was sixteen and built his muscles for the job by working as a furniture mover. I worked as a mover for that long but never felt that it made me ready for pro wrestling. He did a lot of name dropping, and mentioned that when he was in the business, Duane “The Rock” Johnson’s father was still wrestling. Then he said, “You think the Rock is big? You should have seen his father!”

            The pile of black raccoon shit had gathered a collection of flies with metallic golden backs that were glistening in the sunlight and made the coon scat look like it was encrusted with glittering gems.

            Someone made a comment to the man in the electric wheelchair that his wife would be coming soon to see if he was behaving himself. The man in the wheelchair simply responded, “She takes care of me, and I take care of her!”

            A large, bleached blonde woman that had been standing by the door, walked past me to toward the far end of the alley. Seeing her, Joe, the manager called out, “Hey Sid, you’re havin’ a session and you didn’t tell me?” and then he followed the woman to the back. About fifteen minutes later they both returned, along with two other people I hadn’t seen go back there. They were all giggling in a way that made it obvious what kind of session it had been.

            The vegetable lady came out with a big bag of buns in one hand and a coffee in the other. She walked up to me and asked if I would hold her coffee for her, so I did. She was there with one of her co-workers, trying to put the buns into one of the bins, but all the bins were too full for the buns, so she was burning up. She complained as she stuffed them in and they fell to the side that this was not her category and that she didn’t want to have to come out there and deal with the rat infested garbage. Once she’d finished, she took her coffee back and went inside. A few minutes later though she came out for a cigarette, telling someone who asked that she only smokes when she’s at the food bank. Seeing me, standing and reading, she asked if I wanted a crate to sit on. I thanked her but told her I didn’t want to sit.

            A little woman approached the old man, they conversed briefly and then she walked away. I asked, “Is that your wife?” He said that she was and that they had been married for two years now. He told me that he was seventy years old when he realized that he was in love with her. I enquired as to whether he’d been married before and he answered that he had not. He related to me the story of how she’d come from the Philippines five years ago with her adult son and his wife and two children and that they all moved into his building. I asked if he got along with her family. He shook his head bitterly and told me that her son hates his guts because he thinks that he’s stolen his mother away from him. She used to take care of his children but now she is less involved. The old man declared, “If he hates my guts, then I hate his guts! He’s a big guy, but I’m not scared of him!”

            The wrestler and the people by the door were discussing wedding rings. A woman commented that married men don’t like to wear them because they don’t want women to know they are married. The wrestler, who I noticed had a lot of big and dangerous looking rings on his fingers, held out his hand to her to show that he always wears his wedding ring. He added that it doesn’t really matter to women, because even though he makes it clear to them that he’s married, they still hit on him.

            It was coming to the time when we all had to get into a formal line. Nina came to get the old man’s health card from him. I inquired as to why she would need that if he was already registered with the food bank. But I answered my own question out loud, that it was so they would know that she was there in his place to get a number.

            I went to stand behind Nina, but an older man placed himself in between us, claiming that he was actually ahead of her. Maybe he was butting in or maybe he was right. What was I going to do? Get into an argument with someone over one place in line?

            I had to wait an hour longer on a Thursday than I would on my usual Wednesdays to get a number like 18. On Wednesdays the line-up starts at the same time, but I only usually end up standing in it for about fifteen minutes before getting a number and then going home.

            My next-door neighbour came to my door and declared, “Ya know, it just takes one person to set off your day! Then he proceeded to recount to me the story of his trip to Walmart to buy pants that morning. He said he took two pairs of jeans into a change room and then a Walmart employee started yelling at him because he was supposed to go to her first in order to get a key. He said that there was no sign on the change room door to indicate that he was supposed to ask someone before going in. I told him that I’d had the same experience at Value Village a few years ago, but I complained to the manager, telling her that they should put up a sign rather than have their employees yell at customers for not asking to get into the change rooms. She informed me that there is no rule about customers needing to ask and that she would speak to the woman that had given me a hard time.

            Shopping at the food bank on Thursday doesn’t start until 13:30.

            My number was called by the nervous helper. From the top shelf I selected a box of Kenyan Sunrise black tea. Finally, some decent black tea, after a whole summer of drinking a black tea called “ginger peach” that barely tasted like black tea at all.

            From the shelf below that, I made the choice of a package of Chips Ahoy Smores, which look nothing like the picture of the smore on the cover. The cookies are chipped with what I guess are supposed to be little white pieces of marshmallow, but they don’t taste like it.

            On the lower part of that shelf was a choice between individually wrapped banana- chocolate cookies and little packages of fruit juice gummy snacks. I took the gummies.

            From the next set of shelves I took a can of four cheese tomato sauce and from the bottom of that a handful of small pancake syrup containers.

            There were no canned beans or canned fish this time around. All there were other than canned soups in terms of something like canned protein were a few tins of combined peas and carrots, so I took one of those. Of the soup choices, I just took a carton of chicken broth. My guide responded to that with, “Good!”

            The cereal section only had a choice between Shreddies and Cheerios. To me, Cheerios and similar puffed grains seem unsubstantial. It’s like getting a box or bag of air.

            From the cold section I received two half-litre cartons of 2% milk, which, when I got them home, I discovered that they had both been opened. The milk seemed fine, but it’s strange they would have been opened.

            I got four small containers of strawberry yogourt, and for the first time at the food bank, I was given butter: two individually wrapped quarters.

            The final cold choice was either one item from a selection of prepared salads or a bag of five eggs. Of course I took the eggs.

            In the bread section, used to the Wednesday procedure of selecting my own, I reached for a half loaf of sprout bread, but someone stopped me and said, “I have to serve you!” I shrugged and said, “It must be a Thursday thing.” To which she responded, “Yes, it is Thursday.” Maybe she just misunderstood her function, but I went along with it and pointed to the bread I wanted, plus a bag of soft pretzels.

            The vegetable lady gave me some potatoes, carrots, a few small but not very green zucchini, an orange pepper and a red pepper, each with one bad part, and a questionable edible eggplant. There were also containers of fresh watercress, but I couldn’t think of how to use the bitter little things, so I skipped them. Gone were all of the garden fresh vegetables of a few weeks before.

            Having remembered seeing me reading outside, the vegetable lady asked me what kinds of books I like to read. I told her that I mostly read books for university, but she looked at me impatiently. I finally said, “Poetry” but she looked disappointed.

            When I got home, I went online and noticed that my grant money had paid off most of my tuition, all except for $848.20, which the other half of my grant should pay for in January. My refund will be $441.72, but I have a lot of expenses this year, such as the iclicker and books.

            I wore my long sleeved shirt as I walked out to start my bike ride, but I immediately took it off and stuffed it into my backpack before I started riding. I was not overheated wearing pants instead of shorts, but shorts might not have been uncomfortable while riding either.

            There was a long line of jammed cars on Brock Avenue, most of which, for some reason were waiting too close to the curb for me to get by, so I walked about a block altogether, in trying to get past them in order to ride again.

            For the last few months there has been a house propped up on skids near the corner of Parliament and Bloor. It’s boarded up and covered in graffiti as it waits to be moved and at this time of year it is bathed in a golden late afternoon sunglow during the time that I pass by heading east on my bike ride. Since the building is in shadows during my return trip, I stopped on the way to Danforth to take a few photos of it.

            I continued on to Plains Rd and Glebemount.

            Back down on the Danforth I stopped at a Starbucks to use the washroom. A woman was ahead of me and told me that the washroom was occupied. She said that she’d tried both doors, so I trusted her, but while I was waiting for someone to come out a guy came into the coffee shop from a side door and walked right into the washroom. I shouldn’t have trusted her after all. Not that she lied, but she turned out to be incompetent at opening doors.