Buffy

            On Wednesday morning the humidity was driving my guitar crazy. It was going out of tune after every couple of songs. Especially the G-string, which is frayed and about to break was slipping below pitch very often. I’d been putting off changing it because of my essay and planned on changing it that day, but with all the other stuff I had to do I didn’t get around to it.

I’d been so busy working on my essay over the last few days that I hadn’t had time to get my rent money together. I had also put off doing my laundry for the same reason and so two days in a row I had to wear ragged underwear. So on Wednesday at around noon I rode down to King and Dufferin to get my rent. The night before that I had almost bought a bag of Macintosh apples at Freshco but when I was in the checkout line-up I noticed that some of them were going bad and gave them back to the cashier. So on Wednesday when I left the bank, I was thinking of buying some fruit, and since I didn’t want to go back to Freshco I thought I’d ride along King to see if the No Frills at Jameson had re-opened. The windows were still covered up and the apologetic signs about their need to fix the roof as well as the signs about their shuttle service to the other No Frills at Lansdowne and Dundas were still up. Three months seems like a long time.

            Looking it up I found a couple of articles about how much the closure of Vi’s No Frills in lower Parkdale inconveniences the poor elderly. Sometimes the shuttle is not so good for people with walkers or wheelchairs and so they spend extra money for food and other necessities at convenience stores. Some people are paranoid that it’s all a ruse to sell the property for condo developments. It turns out that there are three No Frills stores closed for renovations right now in Toronto, but the company assures the public that all of them will re-open.

            I went home to get my laundry ready but remembered that I was out of plastic garbage bags. Then I remembered that the last time I rode to the Laundromat the garbage bag got ripped open when it caught in my front wheel. I put my clothing and bedding in two extra large cloth bags and tied the handles in knots so they wouldn’t dangle too far down while I was riding.

            I stopped at the liquor store buy a can of beer and was glad that they were stocked up with Creemore.

            I finished my chilli at dinner and watched three episodes of Leave It To Beaver. One of them, for the first time, was interesting enough to not delete. It opened with Beaver and his friend Larry passing a cop that was giving a woman a ticket for illegal parking. She said to him, “I just went in the store for five minutes to pick up a package! I know the sign says ‘No Parking’ but why would they have no parking in front of a store when people have to go in the store? If the city wants ‘No Parking’ signs around why don’t they put them where people don’t park?” Then Beaver says to Larry, “When I was little I wanted to be a policeman, but I don’t wanna be one anymore!” “How come Beaver?” “I don’t think I’d like ladies yellin at me all the time.”

            The story was interesting because it brought to light some middle class prejudice on the part of the mother in the Cleaver family, which to some extent was reconciled in the end. Beaver overheard his father complaining about the bills and saying that if it kept up they were going to end up in the poor house. Beaver then went to ask Wally what the poor house was. He told him that they read about it in Charles Dickens and how everybody wears rags there. Then when Henry Fletcher, the garbage collector came by, Beaver noticed that he was wearing a ragged coat and Beaver asked him if he was poor. Henry answered that he was a long ways from being the richest man in town. “Then do you live in a poor house?” “No, I live in a house on the other side of town. It’s no mansion, but it’s no poorhouse either. It’s right along side of my junk yard.” “Do you have kids and everything?” “Sure, four of them! Two boys and two girls.” “And a wife?” “Yeah!” Then Beaver declared, “If that’s bein poor it’s real neat!” Henry laughed and responded, “Well it’s not bad Beaver! Say, I got a boy about your age. Why don’t you come over and visit us sometime?” “Can I come today?” “Well, I guess you could come along with me in the truck, if it’s okay with your mom.” “She’s not hear, but I can ask my dad!” So he ran in the house and excitedly asked Ward if he could go. Ward was reluctant at first but said it was okay and so Beaver left with Henry. When June came home and found out, she was concerned about Beaver having gone off with Mr. Fletcher and complained that they didn’t even know where the Fletchers lived. Ward said, “Sure we do! They live over the other side of Euclid Avenue by the dump.” She suddenly became even more worried. “Ward, the Beaver isn’t playing in a dump is he?” Ward thought for a second and said, “Probably, and probably having the time of his life too!” Then he reminisced about how when he was a kid his friend and he used to take their 22s to the dump and shoot rats. He wasn’t helping put June at ease. She frowned and stared at him for a moment, then said, “Rats?” “They build their nests in the trash. I remember one; he must have been as big as a terrier! He …” Then he turned and saw the look on June’s face and he shut up. “Ward, you let the Beaver go out and play with rats?” “June, I’m sure he’s doing nothing of the sort, and anyway the Fletchers don’t live in the dump, they just live near the dump.” “Well if I was here I wouldn’t let him leave his nice clean house and go out in some garbage truck!” Suddenly Wally ran downstairs and said, “Mom! Dad! Look out the window! Beaver just drove up in a Rolls Royce!” It was an antique Rolls Royce truck with tow equipment on the back. Beaver came home excitedly recounting what a great day he’d had. June started slapping the dirt off him and exclaimed, “Beaver! Look at your clothes! Nothing bit you did it?” “No mom! We found some old bedsprings and we were jumpin up and down on them! And look, I found this really neat old hairbrush!” “Beaver, you throw that right away!” “But gee mom, it’s still real good! It’s got all its bristols!” She looked at him in dismay and declared, “Beaver, I’ll bet you had no lunch at all!” “Oh sure I did! Their mom made a whole pile of Swift Cheese sandwiches and she let us eat’em out in the junkyard! She’s real neat! She lets kids do what they wanna do!” There was a loud moment of silence with looks exchanged between June and Ward, with her face looking slightly insulted and his looking amused. Then Beaver piped in, “And ya know what else, Mom? They said I could come over tomorrow, and even said I could bring Wally there!” Wally looked at his parents hopefully. June hesitated and said, “Well, Beaver, I don’t want you to go over there tomorrow.” “Gee, why not mom?” “Well, I just don’t want you to!” “Gee, that’s not a good reason at all!” June, in desperation looked to Ward, who came to the rescue by suggesting, “Why don’t you have the Fletcher boys come over here tomorrow?” “Heck, there’s nothing to do around here! Is there Wally?” His brother agreed, “No, there’s really not nothin!” Ward insisted, “You don’t want to wear out your welcome, so tomorrow you have the Fletcher boys over here.”  Beaver agreed and then he and Wally went upstairs. Then June said to Ward, “About those Fletcher boys coming over here tomorrow …” “June, I’m sure there isn’t anything wrong with Henry’s kids!” “Oh, I’m sure there isn’t! I just hope they don’t bring a rat with them!” The next day while June was preparing lunch for the not yet arrived young guests, she confided in Ward that, “I hope those Fletcher boys aren’t, you know, rough.” “Oh, I don’t think so! Henry’s a pretty solid guy!” Then she suddenly looked more worried. “Ward, this is Sunday! You don’t suppose he’ll bring them over in that Rolls Royce tow truck do you!” “Why not? It might add a little class to the neighbourhood!” Meanwhile Beaver and Wally were worried about what they could find to do with the Fletcher kids around the boring Cleaver home. Another antique car pulled up and the Fletcher boys got out. They were extremely clean-cut and polite. The visitors found the Cleaver home exciting and interesting. They had a tree to climb in their front yard and lots of grass. Suddenly the older Fletcher boy lay down in the grass, exclaiming how neat it felt. Then his brother got down beside him and agreed, “Hey! It does feel neat!” Beaver and Wally looked at each other, shrugged and joined them. Pete Fletcher then asked, “Hey! Do you guys ever just lie out here and think about stuff?” Beaver answered, “Me and Wally don’t do much thinkin.” Then the boys went into the garage. The Fletchers were impressed with that too and the fact that Beaver and Wally had a box of their own tools. Wally showed them the shoeshine box that he’d failed to finish and confessed that he hadn’t been able to get it to go together right. Pete looked at it and told him, “You’re supposed to make mortise joints.” Then he started showing him how it was done. When it was time to have lunch, Wally thought they might like to eat their sandwiches in the garage but they wanted to eat with Wally and Beaver’s parents because their father was an “all right guy” and because their mom looked like a “movie star”. That night, when June and Ward came in to say good night to the kids, Wally asked Ward if they could build some stuff together and Beaver told June, “Mom, you really are pretty! There’s a lot of movie stars that don’t look half as good as you do!” Ward and June went downstairs with the nicest feeling they’d had in a long time.

            This mid-second season story is the best-written one that I’ve watched so far in the series. When I checked the author I found that it was John Whedon, who had written a few others. I was very curious if there was a relation between John Whedon and Joss Whedon, who created the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “Angel”, “Firefly” and “Dollhouse” TV series and wrote and directed two Avengers movies. Sure enough, John Whedon was Joss Whedon’s grandfather.