At the food bank, on the Thursday morning
of October 6th, the first thing I did was ask a group of people sitting
furthest away from the door, who was the last person in line. They pointed to a
middle-aged woman of East Indian descent and she also pointed to herself. I
made sure I remembered her face and relaxed into reading “70 Canadian Poets”
for my Canadian Poetry course.
The
big wrestler was there, telling some people about a problem at the place where
he lives where tenants are being harassed. He explained that he won’t fight
because he’s Christian and then quoted that the Bible says, “Fuckin turn the
other cheek!”
A
woman smoking by the door told him about all of the working out and yoga that
she does on a regular basis and how because of that she will be in great shape
by next summer.
A
rotund regular with prematurely grey hair and who is always particularly
talkative was telling someone about the changes that will be taking place in
Parkdale over the next five years. He said that the Beer Store on Brock Avenue
will be moving to the current location of the Dollarama and that the Dollarama
would be moving to the basement beneath the No Frills on King Street. He said
something else about a big Metro store opening up. I have no idea where he got
his information, but it doesn’t sound far-fetched. The Dollarama building
across the street from me, that used to be the BiWay when I moved here in 1997,
would be a very good location for the Beer Store. Where it currently is on
Brock Avenue is pretty much a commercially dead street. The Japanese paper
Place, which was near the current location of the Beer Store has already moved,
so really, besides the Beer Store, the only business on Brock Avenue south of
College Street is the popular Electric Mud barbecue place just north of Queen
Street. If the Beer Store moves to the Dollarama, my place will be almost
exactly halfway between it and the LCBO. I will also probably be hearing
buskers playing all day long, for better or worse.
A
guy came down Cowan, pushing one of those plastic two-wheeled garbage bins. He
pushed it into the driveway and circled around but then went back to the
sidewalk and on down to King Street. I assume the bin was stolen and he was
using it to collect bottles. Perhaps shopping carts are getting harder to come
by these days or maybe the bins are less noisy. I would guess though that the
wheels on a bin might not last as long as those on a shopping cart but I may be
wrong.
After
an hour, the line formed and I stepped into it. There were three women in my
proximity who were in their early middle age. The taller, very thin woman among
them was wearing a crocheted sweater and the blonde woman with the small dog
complimented her, while a brown haired woman told her that she could do that
and proceeded to tell them how she’d made herself a crocheted bikini. The
blonde woman said, “I love crocheted bikinis!” The brunette explained that
she’d made it smaller because the material stretches. She declared, “I made
five blankets in seven days, bud!” and added that being occupied in that way
keeps her from committing murder. The blonde asked me what I was reading, so I
showed her the title. “Nice!” she said, “I love poetry!” The brunette said, “I
write poetry.” As we got closer to the door, the blonde asked the door keeper
if he would hold her dog while she went inside. He nodded and told her that he
would hold her too. Joe the manager was talking to the blonde and the brunette
about women that give free blowjobs but take a tip afterwards. At the same time
he was smoking a cigarette while I was trapped in line nearby.
I
got number 15 and went home, where I’m still getting used to not having cats
anymore. I didn’t notice how much of my day to day habits were affected by
having cats over nineteen years until they were gone. Even something simple
like taking off my backpack or my boots makes me hesitate, because I’m used to
putting them down in places where a cat’s claws wouldn’t have access to them.
Now I can put my scratchable things wherever the hell I want to, but am often
pulled back by habit.
When
I got back to the food bank at 13:30 they had a long table set up so people
could sit down and eat the hot meal that had been prepared. All the food bank
customers that were sitting though, were smoking. Something has really got to
be done about smoking near the door and smoking near the food. But even among
the non-smokers I seem to be the only one that minds. But of course there may
be lots of people that mind but just don’t want to make waves.
The
table they set up is still within nine meters of the door. If they can get it
further away, as long as there is no roof or canopy over the table, it looks
like in Toronto they can get away with people smoking there, though I think
it’s wrong.
The
blonde woman was sitting low on a crate and she called to me, “Hey hon, can you
pull me up?” I went over and took her hand and steadied my arm, letting her use
her own strength against me to pull herself up. She explained that she had
arthritis.
Once
we were inside, I had the same hassle with doorman that I’d had the week
before. He didn’t want to let anyone in unless I moved over but he couldn’t
come up with a reason why I should. The blonde woman was arguing on my behalf
as well, even though she had moved down. I would say he was being an asshole,
but I get the impression that he simply did not understand because he is
developmentally challenged. Then again, he’s not the only one working the door
that expects people to move down. He’s just the only one who makes a big fuss
about it.
Hazel
was standing by the refrigerator. The blonde woman, on noticing that the fridge
door was open a crack, called, “Hazel! Your fridge door is open!” Hazel looked
down and put her hand to the zipper of her jeans to check.
The
nervous helper called my number. Before we even got to the first set of
shelves, she handed me a package of kimchi flavoured udon noodle soup and asked
if I wanted it. It was as if this were a product that she was getting paid to
push, but I took it.
At
the top of the first set of shelves were the usual taco kits, but also cans of
cranberry sauce. I was going to take one of the cans, but then I saw they had
890 millilitre jars of Hellman’s mayonnaise, which seemed like a much more
practical choice. Below that, a package of Ritz mini-cheese whizlike
sandwiches. Below that were a few chocolate granola bars.
There
was rice and pasta as usual, but as usual I didn’t take any because it’s
unusual for me to cook it.
The
canned beans were a choice between string beans or beans and pork in tomato
sauce. Since I hadn’t taken any pasta she gave me two cans of beans with pork.
There
was a choice between canned tuna or a can-sized package of tuna salad. I took
the straight tuna.
There were a
variety of mainstream cereals, but she pointed out to me some packages of
Cheerios Plus with flax, cinnamon and coconut. The Cheerios brand sure is
getting fancy lately.
From the cold
food, Hazel offered a choice of either a half litre of 2% milk or a litre of
chocolate Natrel milk. I’m not a big chocolate milk fan, but I had some 1% milk
at home, plus those half-litre cartons tend to be already opened when I get
them home. The Natrel carton wasn’t.
I got four small containers of Liberté
Greek vanilla yogourt, a package of sliced smoked paprika salami and a bag of
frozen egg patties. Hazel told me, “Happy Thanksgiving!” I was a little
disappointed there were no turkeys, but I recall that they only had turkeys
last year at Christmas time but not Thanksgiving.
From the bread section I got a bag of
multigrain buns and another of pretzels. There wasn’t a wide choice this time
around.
The vegetable lady gave me a few
potatoes, a couple of carrots, a red pepper that wasn’t in great shape, a
turnip and a bag of frozen peas. All she had that was fresh were some green
onions that she said she’d cut herself.
When I was unlocking my bike from the
pole on Cowan, the blonde woman was pushing her cart west on King. She called
out, “Bye sweetie!” I waved.
I didn’t take a bike ride that day, because with
mid-term quizzes and essays coming up, I don’t think I can afford to sacrifice
two hours.
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