Waiting in the Freezing Cold

            I checked the temperature on Saturday morning before getting dressed to stand in line at the food bank. It was minus 22, so I put an extra sweatshirt on under my button shirt. I wore a pair of sweatpants under my trousers, two pairs of cotton socks, one pair of heavy woollen socks, a long scarf under my hoody, another scarf on top of my hoody, my Kodiaks, my leather jacket and my winter gloves. Next time I might wear more.

            There was no one in the line-up when I got there because everyone was keeping warm in the entryway. I stood behind a blue cart with a cardboard box that had been used to bring in Tide cartons.

            There’s a group of three guys that always get there early and hang out together. One is the e-cigarette guy, another is a round man with a moustache and the third is a tough looking scowly guy who always wears a grey, white and plaid jacket with a grey hood. The only interaction with the scowly guy I’ve ever had was back in the spring when I arrived and asked him who the last person in line was and he barked at me, “I don’t fucking know!” I’d told him at that time that he should be trying to get along since we are all in the same boat out on the street and he eventually apologized for getting testy.

            The group of three came out for a smoke and after two of them went inside, scowly guy went across the street to the variety store. When he came back and opened the door to go back in, he stood there for a moment looking in my direction. Suddenly he asked me confrontationally, “Am I wearing something of yours?” I turned to meet his glare with puzzlement; he shook his head in disgust and went inside. I guess he’d thought that I’d been staring at him. I’d been staring down the street about five degrees away from him, though he hadn’t escaped my notice. He would have had to do something interesting for me to have been staring at him.

            A man arrived to stand behind me that was so bundled up that he could have almost been the invisible man if not for a small bit of flesh showing between his sunglasses and the scarf that covered his mouth. When he spoke to me his voice was almost as muffled as that of Kenney from South Park.

            Wayne had been inside, but now he came out wearing no gloves and nothing on his head and began dancing. The cold was already eating through my gloves and multiple socks.
            Wayne walked over to the Toronto garbage and recycling can, opened up the door and pulled out the tall, hard-plastic catcher from inside. He then proceeded to drag it along and to pick up garbage from the sidewalk in front of 1499 Queen. I hadn’t noticed how much garbage there was until he started retrieving it. He grabbed a couple of aluminium strips and I cringed as I watched him hold metal with his bare hands at this freezing temperature. There was some stuff out on the street that he gathered. The final piece was a partially filled black garbage bag, which he tried to toss into the bin like a basketball, while making side to side dodges before each toss. He missed three times until finally just shoving it in but it didn’t go all the way down, so he put the can on its side and began trying to kick it in but it broke and two plastic drinking containers came flying out. It took him a few tries to kick them back in, then he picked up the bin, dragged it back over to the recycling receptacle and closed the door.

            Two Portuguese sisters, one that looks like Nelly Furtado and the other with curly light brown hair and a walker, usually seem to come to the food bank once a month. They were just a few places behind me and Wayne approached them to shake their hands and wish them a happy New Year. He asked them if, in the event that they froze to death, he could have their cart. He then wished me a happy New Year and asked me, “If you freeze to death can I have your jacket?” I thought for a second and told him, “If I die here you can take my jacket … and my money too!” He shook his head, then he came closer and pointed out that the flap was undone on my motorcycle jacket. The snap on my right shoulder often detaches and hangs when it gets opened by the rubbing from my backpack’s shoulder strap. It’s hard to re-do when my pack is on but I did so on his reminder. He commented that I had a nice motorcycle jacket because it’s hard to find ones with so many pockets. I informed him that I’d gotten it for $60 but he declared, “It doesn’t matter how much it cost! You got a good deal!” Then he went back to dancing in front of the door.

            From further back in line, an attractive young woman of about thirty who sounded Latin American approached me to ask if I had a cigarette. I told her that I didn’t smoke and she enthused, “That’s good!” She bragged that she hadn’t had a cigarette in 12 days but now because of standing in the cold she felt she’d like to have one. I suggested that she go inside into the entryway where all the smokers were keeping warm and to ask them. She went, but came back empty handed, explaining that there had been too many men there and she opined that it was better this way so she wouldn’t break her tobacco fast.

            I chatted quite a bit with the bundled up man behind me. He shared that he had been a smoker but had started in adulthood and hadn’t had too much trouble quitting. I related that I’d tried it when I was a teenager but had done so after having smoked marijuana and so tobacco was a disappointment by comparison. Cigarettes didn’t make me high and they didn’t taste as good as pot, so I didn’t see the appeal. He told me that he’d never liked pot but I remembered having great experiences with it but that eventually it had started to feel like I had dust in my head. I opined that I was glad that Canada is legalizing it though and expressed that I was looking forward to seeing how the new freedom was going to change things in our culture. My line-mate seemed more sceptical about the outcome of legalization being a positive thing. He beckoned me to imagine if alcohol had been prohibited all this time but was suddenly about to be legalized after all we’ve learned about the dangers of the substance. I argued that cannabis doesn’t have as dangerous an effect on people as alcohol. He countered that it makes users lazy but I put forward that there are lots of pot smokers that are highly functional. He informed me that he knows some pot smokers that are very lazy but I offered that they might have been lazy in the first place.

            He cited the situation in Holland and informed me that they are already rolling back the legalized status of cannabis there. I think I remembered reading something about that but voiced the view that it seems strange that they would reverse it, given that it brings in so much money from tourists. He told me that they had changed it so that only Dutch citizens can buy pot and they’ve begun a policy of asking to see people’s citizenship identification when they come to purchase the bud. I expressed scepticism that such a policy could be put into practice because it would mean asking every single customer for ID. He cited the fact that the liquor store cards people proves that it is practical but I argued that the LCBO doesn’t ask everyone and I repeated that demanding ID from every single client would not be logical. He started getting unreasonably upset that I was disagreeing with him on this issue. I told him not to take it personally but he argued that when you tell someone they aren’t logical it is personal. I explained that I hadn’t been telling him that he wasn’t logical but was rather declaring the premise of carding all marijuana purchasers to be illogical because of its impracticality.
            He told me to look it up for myself and I guaranteed him that I would. We continued to chat amicably after his mild bout of anger had subsided. He mentioned that they have also shut down the red light district in Amsterdam, but I offered that I’d heard that they’d merely shrunk it. I opined that even that seemed odd because system of including sex trade workers as legitimate tax paying members of the work force in Amsterdam seemed to me to work quite well, and in fact, the happiest prostitutes I’d ever met had been in Amsterdam. My friend got a little bit testy again and just urged me to look it up.

            So later on I did research the subjects of our conversation. The main revelation (though I think I knew this in the back of my mind already) was that cannabis is not and never has been either legal or decriminalized in Holland. It is against the law to possess and to smoke pot but it is officially tolerated and so chances are that anyone with less than five grams of marijuana, hash or hash oil will not be charged. The Cafes that I saw in Amsterdam with the marijuana leaf on the window are also technically illegal, but tolerated. Law enforcement turns a blind eye if Cafes have less than 500 grams on the premises (which seems like an impractically small amount for a store to have, so I doubt if they obey that rule. They probably keep that much on display and then have a nearby larger stash in storage). Holland however is slowly moving towards legalization and I predict that they will keep a close eye on developments in Canada after we legalize it seven months from now.

            I also found out that my line companion was correct that a “Weed Pass” restricted to Dutch nationals was implemented, but only in trial form in the southern provinces, near the border, where foreigners have been crossing just to buy pot. But I was right to think it impractical that store clerks would be willing to follow through with such an annoying practice as asking everyone for identification. The Weed Pass has been abandoned almost everywhere, except in the city of Maastricht.

            I also found that I was correct that the red light district in Amsterdam has been not been shut down but it has been shrunk down by more than half to two colourful areas.

            We saw Valdene Allison, the food bank co-manager and the doorkeeper cross the street on their way to work. Valdene announced with a smile that they would be starting early. I looked at my phone and saw that it was 10:12. Since the food bank officially opens at 10:30 and since she was just arriving, they would have to perform the miracle of opening within the next 17 minutes in order to be able to claim that they’d started early.

            They began to let the first five clients in at 10:35. It seemed like a very long wait before they advanced the next five. Meanwhile the cold was minute by minute making us all feel less and less clothed and we were all doing what my companion called “the Ottawa two-step”. We were at the head of the fourth wave and it was nice to finally be inside. The stairwell smelled like a horse stable as we descended to the basement.

            When we arrived in the shopping room I was surprised that since last Saturday they had rearranged the shelves and sections. The area where with the big window, behind which Angie had previously stood to distribute the dairy and meat, now seemed to be just for storage. The first shelf was now halfway in front of the big window and it seems that they had entirely reversed the order of the shelves. The one in front of the window, containing the mostly odd items that don’t fit the other categories, had previously been the last shelf near the exit. They continued on in the opposite order than before.

            In an effort to get people through as fast as possible, the volunteers were attempting to handle two shoppers at a time. This was difficult from my perspective because I was expected to choose items that I couldn’t get close to look at because the guy in front of me was shopping from the same shelf and therefore standing in my way.

            Our helper was Lana, who seems to enjoy pushing items that she thinks I might like. From the first set of shelves I picked a container of Dijon mustard and a sleeve of saltines of which Lana said I could take two. Then she pointed out what looked like a packaged brownie about the size of a TV remote control and encouraged me to take it. It turned out to be a “banana brownie” from Brazil and made entirely of bananas. This is from a Brazilian company called Ipanema Valley. The brownie cake has ten squares and each one is from one banana. The website does not explain by what process they are able to condense bananas into squares. I’ve had dried bananas but they didn’t look so much like chocolate in both shape and colour as these things do. It makes me wonder if there are really only bananas and not a few chemicals added as well, but they taste a lot better than dried bananas.

            There were plenty of canned beans but I was reluctant to take any because I already had four cans at home and my shelf was getting pretty full. Then again, I would be going vegetarian for 40 days starting in about a month and so the beans would come in handy. I took a can of refried pinto beans with green chillies.

            From the top of the soup shelf I took a free range chicken broth. Down from that were the canned soups but it didn’t look like there was anything interesting until Lana pulled from the back and showed me a potato and leek soup. She seems to have a talent for finding things that I might like. She also grabbed a can of tuna and tossed it into my bag without asking. I always take tuna so maybe she remembered. From the cracker section (I don’t know why the saltines had been elsewhere) I picked a bag of sweet potato thins and there was a box of chewy berry granola bars that Lana said I could take. At the cereal shelf, Lana suggested a box of Dorset muesli, “Because you look like a healthy kind’a guy!” I like it when someone knows what I like. I wonder if she knows that. For some reason, sealed in plastic with the meusli was a small Bernardin Mason jar. I wouldn’t associate meusli or any cereal with Mason jars. Inside the jar was a little booklet from Dorset that contained various serving suggestions involving the jar. I guess it’s like a thing for people on the go. I’ll probably use it for storage. In the pasta section, among the canned tomatoes, I found a small can of crushed chilpotle peppers.

            Angie’s dairy and meat section was awkwardly set up at a table in front of the refrigerators which had been moved to displace the three sets of shelves that had been there last time. She gave me two half litres of milk, two bags containing six eggs each, two packs of spicy cheese slices, two packages of froze, sliced turkey breast, three fruit cocktail drinking boxes, a small cup of yogourt and a 650 gram container of organic strawberry yogourt. She offered me frozen hot dogs and ground chicken, but I had some at home. Then she asked if I wanted some bacon. I said I did and she gave me a whole pack but warned me to cook it that day. When I looked at the best before date it read “February 16, 2018” so I don’t know why I was supposed to fry it up right away but I took her advise anyway. Maybe it was because it had been frozen and then thawed but I would think that I could have frozen it again.

            Sylvia’s vegetable section was next to Angie. She had fruit for a change and so I got four clementines and three bananas. I didn’t take any of the potatoes, onions, carrots or rutabagas that she wanted to give me because I had plenty and she seemed almost offended. “He doesn’t want my stuff!” she cried out to Angie.

            I didn’t take any bread either.

            I had predicted that the food bank would have a lot less to offer in early January than during the holidays, but so far I’ve been wrong. Though there were no greens, there was fruit, which hardly ever happens. The meat, eggs and dairy on offer were all more than usual. The shelves were all well stocked with canned protein as well, so this was a pretty good haul. They really should figure out a way to not make people stand outside in deep-freezing weather though.