Schizophrenia and Poverty

           

            On Wednesday, August 3^rd, at the food bank I got in line for a number behind Julie and a middle aged woman with an elderly, obese and worried looking dog named Jo-Jo. Julie spoke to me by name, I think, unless she’d said, “Question: …” instead of “Christian …” when she asked me if I’d been there before her. I assured her that she’d been standing in line when I arrived.

            The staff of the food bank that smoke tend to stand far from the door and out on the sidewalk these days when they do so. I don’t know if this is a result of my complaints and the email that I sent to the board of directors last year or not. The only problem with them smoking on the sidewalk is that it’s near the back of the line, so I end up picking up their second hand smoke anyway.

            I got number 11, went home and then came back two hours later.

            I stood reading in the shade of the trees that shoot out from under the building across the alley from the food bank.    The white haired woman with the red face, who tends to sit smoking on the fire escape, came and sat down behind me on the three palates that have been piled on top of one another for that purpose since someone broke the coveted Muskoka chair. I had never stood beside her before, but she tends to start up conversations with whoever happens to be nearby.

            She began by asking me what I was reading. I told her that it was a book for eleven year olds in French. She said she’d found a bunch of books down the street. I agreed that it’s fun to find books. She changed the subjects of her questions quite suddenly. She wanted to know what I think happens to the soul when we die. I declared that I have no idea if we even have souls. She asked how old I am, but I wanted first to know how old I looked to her. She really low-balled me with a guess of 41. I told her I was 61. She asked if I felt healthy and I told her I did. She went on to give me a bit of an account of her life. She said that despite having schizophrenia she had a good job a few years ago at the CIBC. Her parents are both still alive and in their mid-80s but she says that her mother has not been very nice to her. She recounted a few stories of being evicted and of being kicked out of places where she’d taken shelter. In addition to schizophrenia she said that she also has hypoglycemia and diabetes but that she takes all of the medication that is prescribed to her.

            My number was called, so I went inside.

            My helper was Sue.

            I took another bag of red curry Kettle Chips and a bag of barbecue flavoured toasted bread crisps.

            She gave me some cranberry and orange breakfast cookies, a small banana chocolate flavoured cake in a package with the image of a “minion” playing electric guitar on the cover. There was also a small package of sugar free real fruit gum candies.

            Then Sue handed me a double roll of soft toilet paper. That’s a cool and very appropriate thing to get from the food bank.

            I skipped the next two shelves, the second of which was pretty close to empty. It had some Kraft dinner type boxes but none of the canned beans that it usually has.

            The next set of shelves had some canned and packaged fish. Since I hadn’t taken anything from the last two sets of shelves, Sue let me take a couple of extra things from here. I got a small can of tuna, another of salmon salad and two packages of wild sardines.

            There were choices of various hand bagged granola snacks. They are made with a lot of wholesome ingredients but are also very sweet because of honey, brown rice syrup or agave syrup. I took one that was in the form of tiny cookies, with a strong cinnamon flavour.

            There were several gourmet cereal granolas, but I took a big box of Shreddies.

            In the cool section there was a half-liter of 2% milk.

            There was a choice of several fresh grain salads from Longos. I took the black grain firecracker salad.

            I also got a couple of frozen beef patties.

            I grabbed a whole grain loaf from the bread section and was about to walk over for my weekly encounter with the vegetable lady, when Hazel came up to me, said, “Happy birthday!” and handed me a bar of Lindor dark chocolate.  It wasn’t my birthday, but I think she knew that.

            The vegetable lady gave me three peaches, one of which was actually in pretty good shape; I got two plums and an apple; I took a package of what was supposed to be fresh salsa, but when I got it home I could taste that the tomatoes had turned, so threw it out; there was a bunch of some kind of greens that weren’t spinach, Swiss chard or kale, but the vegetable lady commented that it all boils down the same way, so she calls it all “spinach”. She offered me a bag of fresh buns, but I turned them down. She commented, “That’s why you’re so slim!” Nobody has called me slim in a long time. To be fair, she does not have very good eyesight.