Misunderstandings

            On Saturday morning my body was still aching from my bike ride the day before. I felt a little better after yoga but I was slightly hoping for it to rain later on to keep me from taking another long jaunt in the afternoon.

            I tried to find the chords to Serge Gainsbourg’s “Initials BB” but all that was available online was the notation, which I can’t read, so I’ll have to figure out the chords on my own.

            The food bank line-up wasn’t that long when I arrived but it did stretch out quite a bit later. A guy asked me for a cigarette which of course I didn’t have but when he held out his hand the whole appendage was nicotine stained.

            I read a page of Balzac’s "The Atheist’s Mass".

            A lot of people rode by riding those green Bike Share bikes. They weren’t all in a line but it looked like they were all of the same middle class group.

            A woman stepped out of her place in line to rip a poster down from a pole, tear it up and throw it in the garbage. Later she walked over to a bike post ring and picked up a flyer advertising a free bike clinic, tore that up and put it in the garbage as well. I know that the bike clinic event had already passed but I don’t know about the event that the poster had advertised. Over many years of living in the city I’ve sometimes noticed certain people that do the exact same thing that she did. Most of he ones that tear down posters do it only to the posters they see in their immediate path when they are on their way someplace, but other people are on a mission and deliberately walk around looking for posters to remove. Some of them even carry an exacto-knife in their pocket for that very purpose. I assume it’s some kind of symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

            A woman asked for the time and explained that she doesn’t carry her phone around any more because they always get stolen. Isn’t the whole point of a mobile phone so one can carry it around?

            Martina came out a little after 10:30 to count the crowd so she would know how many numbers to put in the box. There were 37 of us at that time. When she came back she asked everyone to stand in line so she could more easily walk from person to person to get each one to draw a number. A few people crowded around her and she had to tell them to give her some space. I pulled out number 14, which I wasn’t unhappy with.

            Martina chastised the woman behind me for trying to look in the box when she picked her number. She didn’t speak English very well but she seemed confused about her number because there is a number on each side. On is a number written against a painted background and the other is on the non-painted arborite surface. I told her that her number was the one on the painted background. Later she confronted Martina about it but because of the language barrier they seemed to be on two different wavelengths. Martina thought she was complaining about having too high a number. Martina asked, “What do you want me to give you? Number one?” She eventually gave her another number but I didn't see the woman give her original number back.

            I was in the second wave of people invited downstairs. The computers were on the fritz and so Sylvia was just taking down people’s names and birthdays. She asked me my name and I said, “Christian”. She asked my first name and I said “Christian". She asked to see my card and when I showed it to her she exclaimed with delight, “Your name is Christian Christian?" She noted that we have the same birth year of 1955. I told her that it’s the same year that a rock and roll song became number one on the charts.

            Marlena was my volunteer and she said in a businesslike manner, “I’m ready for you.” I responded, “I’m ready for you too.” She gave me a strange, stern look in reaction to that as if I’d said something offensive.

            From the shelves I took a jar of organic barley miso, a bag of organic popcorn, a box of hemp hearts granola, a bag of individually wrapped teabags from Fairmont Hotels called “Fairmont Breakfast” but probably basically the same as English breakfast tea, a can of tuna and a can of fava beans. She also gave me three oats and chocolate chewy bars; a caramel dipped granola bar; a yogourt, fruit, nut and quinoa granola bar; a strawberry yogourt granola bar and a strawberry nutrigrain bar.

            Angie offered me milk but I turned it down because I have some already. I also eschewed the soya cheese slices. I did take the bag of three eggs and the two small fruit bottom yogourt containers. In addition to the usual frozen ground chicken, the chicken wieners and bologna, there was also a box of frozen chicken burgers, so I grabbed that. She asked if I eat tofu and I answered "sometimes" but I didn't want any because it tastes like chalk. She also wondered if I'd like some turkey but when I said yes she presented me with almost half of an enormous partially frozen turkey loaf.  It was cooked already and I had a slice later in a sandwich for lunch and it seemed fine. But when I had another slice the next day it just tasted wrong, like a salmonella sandwich, so I threw it away. Turkey is better when the ingredients are only turkey rather than the addition of starch, carrageenin and ecoli. Angie’s final items were three small containers of hummus. I took them because they were free but the brand name was Sabra, which is part of the Israeli product boycott because though Sabra is in the US it’s part of a joint venture between Pepsico and the Strauss Group, which is an Israeli company that has branches in settlements in occupied Palestine. I try to avoid Sabra products in the supermarket but at the food bank, since I’m not paying for it I don’t think I’m really dishonouring the boycott.

            Since Sylvia was minding the desk, the vegetable section was empty. I asked Angie if I should just help myself. She answered, “It’s okay. I’m watching you.” Before I could pick anything though, another volunteer rushed up to help me. I selected a cauliflower, a head of lettuce, two onions, three fairly firm tomatoes, a few potatoes and a handful of carrots.

            Before I left I asked Angie how the garden is doing this year. She informed me that the food bank doesn’t have and has never had a garden. They've just had people with gardens donate vegetables, but no one has brought anything in this year. I’d thought for sure I'd heard people that volunteer at the food bank, on more than one occasion talk about the food bank having a garden on Cowan Avenue but I guess I was wrong. Or maybe I heard right but they were wrong. Either way, there are no fresh vegetables.