Armed

            Almost all of my morning song practice is in the dark nowadays, as it finishes right around sunrise. One good thing about that is that I don’t have to comb my hair before standing in front of the window with my guitar.

            I had to do laundry on Sunday and so I went out at around midday. After loading my stuff in the washer I walked to Shoppers Drug Mart to look for deodorant. They certainly have the largest selection I’ve seen but the shelves are all weaponized with spring-loaded pushers that bring an item forward as soon as the one in front of it is taken. The thing is that if one doesn’t take an item firmly in hand it sends it shooting off the shelf. It happened to me with two or three deodorant brands I was trying to look at.

            The laundromat was busier than I’d ever seen it and people were holding onto laundry carts that they weren’t using, I guess because they were afraid of not being able to find one later, I had to get the last free one out of the other room. Customers were also blocking the aisles with their stuff so I couldn’t get to the dryers in the first room and so I had to go to the second half. The second room is less convenient because there are no tables in front of the dryers. Since I had a bottom dryer I just sat on the floor while emptying my dryer and stuffed everything into my two shopping bags.

            I wanted to work on my paragraph for philosophy tutorial but as of Sunday evening the TAs hadn’t posted the questions. They usually have them up by Thursday night. I’ve done all the reading but there were two readings and without the specific question I didn’t know what to read twice. I turned out though that I had time to read everything twice and late that night the questions were sent by email.

            That evening I heard the skinny woman with the curly auburn hair panhandling outside my window on Queen Street. She looks like she's in her 70s but since her hair isn't grey and I assume she can't afford to dye it so maybe she's only in her 50s. I listened to her tell someone that she'd worked all her life and it surprised me that it hadn't occurred to me that might be the case.

            Later I heard her arguing with her boyfriend, Paul, who wanted $5 from her so he could buy a submarine sandwich. She reminded him that she'd already given him some money and that was all she could afford to give him. I always hear him hanging around and talking to people while she's begging but I never notice him doing it himself. Maybe he's a kept man.

            That night I heard a woman shouting in a panicky voice. I looked out and there were two older women on the sidewalk, both of them seemed poor from their clothing, though one of them was dressed more flamboyantly than the other and pulling a cart. She was the one doing the shouting. It looked like they had just jaywalked to the north side of Queen and they were standing there with their unleashed dirty little toy poodle and calling desperately to their other disheveled pooch, which was standing on the streetcar tracks and looking confused. Finally they coaxed it to the curb before any cars came and the woman that wasn't pulling the cart picked up both dogs and held them under each arm. The two women argued for a minute and then continued on their way together.

            I watched another episode of Mike Hammer and one thing I've noticed five-shows-in is that although everyone has guns there are no gun fights. There is always at least one fancy fistfight though.