Before even turning my
bike into the driveway behind the Parkdale Food Bank on Saturday I was hit by a
wall of sound. The guy with the little green flying saucer shaped portable
sound system hanging from his belt was blasting ACDC. He had a self-satisfied
look on his face, I assume because the volume of the music enabled him to touch
everyone there. It’s not like I object to ACDC being played, but cranked up
that high where people are trapped, waiting for something is way too imposing,
and though it’s not as bad as second hand smoke, the guy was also smoking.
I found out that I was behind a shy
young, bespectacled woman in a black toque who was behind him. I moved deeper
into the driveway to avoid the smoke and the noise, but the smoke this time was
blowing away from the music too. The same group of Caribbean women were sitting
by the door, along with the group of smokers that enjoy talking with them.
It’s funny (or sad) when smokers ask
people, “Is my smoking bother you?” and then think it’s alright if the person
answers, “No.” If you liked to put a little rat poison in your coffee every
time you made it because strychnine serves as an extra stimulant along with the
caffeine, would you put it in a guest’s coffee if they said it was okay?
The group by the door was discussing
Mick Jagger’s most recent foray into fatherhood. The constantly smoking man
with the big white moustache and the big belly, who kind of looked like Wilfred
Brimley, had all the info. That Jagger’s oldest child is 46 and now he has a
brand new one at the age of 73. The big Jamaican woman commented, “And he
doesn’t look too bad!” Moustache said, “You know who else looks great for her
age? Jane Fonda! 79 years old! And Dolly Parton looks good too!”
It was a cold morning. A woman
banged on the food bank door and shouted, “We’re freezing our asses off out
here! When is the coffee going to be ready?” One of the volunteers came to the
door to address the crowd. He said, “I know you guys like to congregate here
before the doors open, but …” What? Yeah, it’s just a fun habit we have,
because this driveway is such a pleasant gathering place for aficionados of
first and second hand smoke. He went on to explain that he was busy preparing
everybody’s turkey or ham vouchers and he wouldn’t get anything done with
people walking in and out to get coffee. There were a few more things said
until he announced that coffee would be ready in five minutes.
After ten or fifteen minutes there
was still no coffee. A guy went and banged on the door. A woman sitting by the
door warned him that the volunteers would just get pissed off if he bugged them
and then would take longer. He started to go to the front of the driveway, but
she called to him, “Don’t bang on the door and then walk away!” So he went back
to the door and then suddenly it opened, so he got to go in to get a coffee.
This pissed off the woman that had yelled at him because the coffee line-up
should follow the order of the number line-up.
I was trying to read Michael
Ondaatje’s “The Complete Works of Billy the Kid” but I only got through a few
poems against the distractions and the cold.
At around 10:30 I stepped into the
line-up behind the woman in the black toque but she turned and said I could go
ahead of her. I was puzzled and asked why. She just explained that she wasn’t
in that much of a hurry and stepped behind me. Maybe I either smell bad from
the front or look good from the back.
There was a line-up running parallel
to the one I was in, but I was assured by ACDC guy that the guy in front of
that line knew that he was behind me.
They were supposed to start letting
people in to get numbers at 10:30 but they didn’t do so this time until 10:45.
I shared with ACDC guy my idea about the food bank hooking a clipboard to the
door so that people could put their places in line in writing. He suggested
that it made too much sense to work, because then somebody would have to be in
charge of the clipboard and also they’d have to get a clipboard out of the
Smithsonian.
I discussed with ACDC guy and the
short, bearded guy in the motorcycle jacket who was in front of the other line,
how the Parkdale Food Bank is the only one in Toronto that has this two-stage
system of getting a number and later getting food. Apparently every other food
bank just gives you food after you pass the desk and there’s none of this
coming back to wait all over again.
I guess it was because this was a
turkey day that the line-up went to the end of the driveway and then turned to
stretch up Cowan towards Queen.
As I got closer to the door, the big
volunteer with the prematurely white hair came out for a smoke. He was talking
about there having been a lot of fraud among people getting turkeys on the
previous year, with individuals sometimes getting four turkeys with four
different names. He claimed that Parkdale is the only food bank in Toronto
giving out turkeys for Christmas. I can’t find any proof that’s true and it
seems implausible. He also claimed that since it’s volunteer run, if the
volunteers were pissed off they could all just shut down and go home and nobody
could do anything about it. I think the board of directors could probably do
something about it. There are benefits to being a food bank volunteer that they
would lose if they were let go. For one thing they don’t have to line up in the
cold for their food.
Even though it was freezing outside
the doorkeeper was only letting in one client at a time in whenever someone
walked out with a number. There is room for at last five people to stand inside
in a small line-up in front of the reception desks. When I was the first person
in line he actually commented to me, “Cold, eh?”
It was already 11:00 when I got
number 24. There was barely enough time to go home, but I had to pee anyway, so
I walked my bike out of the driveway and around the back of the line-up to ride
home for a few minutes.
When I got back, the line-up for
numbers was still just as long, but there were also people in the same line
just waiting for a turkey.
When I got in, some clients were
complaining about someone with number 76 who’d managed to jump the line and get
served ahead of everyone else.
A new volunteer called number 28. I
told him I had 24 so he served me.
There always are so many odd items
at the top of the first shelf. I just took a can of jalapenos. He gave me a
couple of handfuls of those chocolate hockey pucks they seem to have an infinite
supply of, then he asked, “Are you good?” I said that I’d rather have the
granola bars to the left of the chocolates and so he gave me a few of the
Nature Valley Sweet and Salty bars as well. I skipped the pasta, rice, sauce
and canned beans, but further in there was real peanut butter so I took that
and a can of tuna. My volunteer’s catch phrase before we left each set of
shelves was, “Are you good?”
He gave me a couple of small bottles
of Oransoda, which is an imported Italian soft drink and so there is nothing
written in English at all. It turns out that it’s now made by Campari, which
makes mainly alcoholic beverages. Oransoda has been around since 1940. It’s
type of beverage is aranciata, which is similar to Orangina.
The cereal section had lots of Chex,
but I saw far in the back a lonely, large but broken box of Cheerios, so I
asked for that. Only the cardboard was broken so I took the bag that was
inside.
Across the aisle, Angie had a
half-liter carton of 2% milk, a small frozen Pillsbury pizza and in a bin with
turkeys and hams for those with vouchers were also a choice between packages of
frozen bologna and ground turkey. I took the ground turkey. I guess that since
the turkeys are only available until December 23rd, I’d better bring
my voucher in next Saturday. The food bank might not even be open on Saturday
the 24th.
I asked the bread lady for the small
loaf of whole grain that was on the upper shelf. She said I could take one more
thing, so I took a bag of English muffins.
I took a green pepper from the bin
in front of the vegetable lady. She was about to give me two packages of
stuffing but then asked if I had my turkey. Since I didn’t have a turkey she
took the stuffing back. She dumped a whole bunch of carrots into my bag, a
couple each of sweet potatoes and zucchini. Then she took two handfuls of
potatoes and for some reason tossed them toward my bag, some of them missing
and hitting the floor. She told me she’d pick them up and got a few more to
place in my bag.
As soon as I got home and placed the
perishables away, I took off my motorcycle jacket so it wouldn’t get greasy and
immediately took my bicycle up the street to Bike Pirates to repair the wobble
in my back tire and to fix my back brakes. I expected to be there for at least
three hours, so it was going to be a busy Saturday.
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