A Smashing Time at the Food Bank

            The heat hadn’t started to hit hard when I got ready to leave for the food bank on Saturday morning, but I knew that it would, so I wore sandals instead of Blundstones.

            The elderly regular named Mike was a couple of places ahead of me in line and greeted me. He’s usually there a lot earlier and therefore further ahead.

            He told me that he’d observed that when Martina comes around with the box of numbers for those in the line-up to randomly pick from, the people at the front of the line tend to get higher numbers than those at the back. I suggested that when we return our numbers downstairs, the highest numbers are always at the top of the pile, and so when Martina picks them up to put them in the box she might scoop them up with both hands and drop them in such a way that the high numbers are unintentionally above the low ones. We agreed that it might be best to dig down when one reaches into the box.

            The volunteer that’s usually in charge of the bread walked past us down the line on her way to have a cigarette with Angie. As she passed, Mike said, “Morning Blanche!” I commented to him, “I thought her name was Lana.” He nodded an affirmation. I asked, “So why do you call her Blanche?” “I have trouble remembering names.” “So you just call every woman Blanche?” He nodded and told me, “Like in the Golden Girls”.

            I asked him if he’d found a place yet but he said he was still homeless and living in a shelter. I mentioned that I’d overheard him say that his price range is between $300 and $400 and I wondered how he could be hoping to get a room for that price downtown. He explained that he’s on the list for income adjusted housing and that his case gets double priority because he’s both homeless and a senior.

            I stepped out of line to get away from the second hand smoke and was doing some reading from Balzac’s “The Atheist’s Mass” when a guy came up and started talking to me. I know that he was speaking English and I was pretty certain that English was his first language but I couldn’t understand a word he said and told him so. I suggested that it was because he was speaking with a cigarette in his mouth but when he took it out he spoke in the same way as before. I don’t think that he had a physical speech impediment but rather a mental condition that causes him to slur his words until they are incomprehensible. He pulled a small alarm clock out of his pocket and fondled it while he was talking. Finally he tossed the clock into the street and walked away. A minute or so later I heard a loud cracking noise as a car ran over the timepiece.

            The food bank van arrived with only Valdene, the manager inside but not Martina, our usual doorkeeper. At about 10:10 Valdene announced that there would be no numbers this time and so we’d have to go in based on or places in line, as in the original system.

            The person behind me was an elderly man with a walker. I told him that on Fridays the food bank is for seniors and disabled people only, and so there might be less of a line-up. He told me that this was only his second time coming to the food bank and he hadn’t known about Fridays.

            They let the first five people in at about 10:20. I was in the third group of five.

            On a table near the reception desk were packages of butter tarts and pecan tarts, as well as some packages of frozen parathas. Valdene was at the reception desk and the woman in front of me asked if we could take the tarts on the way in, since they were so far from the door. Valdene said we could and so I got the tarts and the parathas.

            From the shelves I took a bag of poutine-flavoured potato chips; a box of oat-smoked flour and red chilli crackers; a litre of apple juice; a can of chickpeas; and a can of tuna (it least this time the tuna was not restricted to those that chose not to take any meat from Angie). My volunteer also gave me three whole-wheat strawberry squares and a yogourt, fruit and nut granola bar.

            There were a few items in the soup section and my volunteer seemed to think I would like a can of cream of mushroom that looked at least on the label a little more gourmet than usual. I'm not a fan of canned mushrooms though.

            Angie offered me milk but I had some at home so I didn’t take it. I also turned down her usual meat offerings of frozen ground chicken, hot dogs and bologna. If I was destitute I would taken them but when I have a little bit of power to choose I’d rather steer clear of garbage meat. She gave me five small containers of fruit-bottom yogourt and a Steamers frozen honey sesame chicken. I noticed that the box says that it's with "pasta" rather than noodles. I've never seen an Asian style dish that had pasta. Noodles are usually made from wheat flour while pasta is made from durum, which is more expensive and tougher.

            Angie told to me, "You're a good guy" then she looked sneakily around and said, "Put this in your bag" and she brought up a one and a half litre jug of fresh apple juice and slid it towards me on its side.

            Sylvia gave me three large but kind of soft potatoes; two apples; a head of lettuce; a seedless cucumber; three carrots; an onion and a bag of frozen green soybeans in pods.

            I went over to the bread section to see what there was besides just white bread. On the bottom shelf was a sliced loaf of yeastless farmer’s rye bread. Lana was squatting on the floor between the door and the bread and looking kind of depressed. “Help yourself,” she told me.