Service Dogs Are Not Supposed to Snap at People

            On Saturday morning part of my mind told another part that the sound it was hearing was the staying-asleep alarm and not the waking up alarm. But the electronic rooster did rough surgery on my consciousness with a raspy scalpel and I lurched my body into the usual motions like a movie Frankenstein rising from a lightning stricken slab. Every yoga pose I did seemed to form the letter “Why?” as my attempts to put my brain into consciousness were like me trying to pick up an Oleo slathered pea with three chopsticks in my left hand. 

            I went to the food bank at the usual time but the line-up was almost twice as long as usual because this was the day they would be giving out the Christmas turkeys.

            It was a bit warmer than the week before but I was comfortable in the same layers. The difference was that I didn’t need to wear my winter gloves while reading my book. I’d brought Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which I would be studying at the end of February in my Romantic Literature class. I didn't make it into the actual novel because the introduction is so long, but I managed to read half of that. Shelley’s parents were William Godwin, considered the leading political thinker of his day and Mary Wollstonecraft, the primary feminist thinker of her day. Their daughter married the radical poet Percy Shelley and so from childhood on she spent her life in a rare intellectual atmosphere. The other part of the introduction that I read covered the science behind the bringing to life of Frankenstein’s monster. Considering some of the scientific theories of her era it wasn’t that far fetched.

            The woman behind me had left her cart and gone inside for a few minutes. The woman that arrived next was someone I’d seen at the food bank many times although not lately at the Queen Street location. She was a loud, middle-aged person with stark features and a nervous personality. She actually seemed a little drunk but maybe that was her sober state. When the woman directly behind me came back to her spot the nervous woman disputed her position in line. I came to her defence and pointed out that her cart had been there when she arrived. She realized her mistake and apologized to the woman behind me. The nervous woman was stressed about the length of the line-up and about how long it was going to take because, she told someone, her son lives with her but she has the only key and he had to go to work, so she was worried about him having to leave their door unlocked.

            A little further back was the guy with the stolen Dollarama shopping cart. He’d been looking for kitty litter and cat food the last time he was there but this time he was talking about his dog. He told someone his dog snaps at people that walk up and try to pat him on top of the head. He said he’s never bitten anyone but doesn’t understand why people don’t ask first. Yes in an ideal world everybody would ask before they touch anybody but you can’t just shrug off your dog snapping at people and say that people are poorly trained. If your dog is snapping at people it’s not the dog’s fault and it’s not the fault of people, it’s your fault. Dogs can be trained not to react aggressively to a trigger like being patted on the head. If you’re going to have a dog in a human community you have to either teach it how to behave around people or not have a dog.

            He said that his dog is a registered service dog and he has the documentation that would allow him to take his dog on a plane. I assume that he's not legally blind because I’ve never seen him getting around with the help of a guide dog and so he must have some other disability for which he would require a service dog. There are service dogs that can tell diabetics when to take their insulin but I’m assuming that this guy has a psychiatric service dog. If his dog is a service dog that snaps at people then it should not have received a certificate, as there are very strict rules of public behaviour for service dogs and snapping is one of the no-nos. Behavioural training for a dog can be expensive and for this kind of an issue it would cost $250 even for two training sessions at the Humane Society. But in the case of a service dog he probably wouldn’t have to pay for any behavioural correction as I suspect his ODSP would cover it.

            The prematurely silver haired volunteer who sometimes drives the food bank van during the busier days like this one, came walking down the line with an enormous bag of dog food on his shoulder. Someone shouted out, “I didn’t know you had a dog!” He called back, “I got a big fuckin dog!” He walked over to the guy with the stolen shopping cart and gave the bag to him. He was so moved by the gesture that he went after him and as the driver was about to drive away in the van he opened the passenger door and gave him a big hug.

            By this time the line was stretching almost down to Beaty Avenue. A young woman came walking along the line looking shocked and suddenly she stopped to ask me, “Is this the line-up for the Tool Library?” I said, “No, you can go right into the Tool Library. It’s just through that door and downstairs.”

            A few places ahead of me, Robbie’s sister was sternly telling a woman that she had to go to the back of the line because she was butting in. I said to Robbie’s sister “Didn’t you butt in?” She always comes at least a half an hour later than Robbie and always takes a place with him in line. The woman in front of me argued, “No she didn't! She's here with her brother!" They shop separately and I don’t think they live together so I don’t see why she would get to be with Robbie in line. I don’t think Robbie’s sister picked up on my complaint, as she walked over to me, put her hand on my arm, leaned in and whispered, “I think she’s trying to butt in!”

            The shopping cart guy was having a discussion with the slim coated guy that I’d chatted with last week about the electric car. He said they had electric cars in the 60s but the oil companies repressed them. I corrected him that it had been in the 30s but I realized a minute later that the electric car had actually been big in the 1910s.

            The line had started moving pretty much on time but with an extra fifteen people more in front of me than usual it was an extra half an hour before I got downstairs. They had twice as many volunteers as usual. At the reception desk Steve asked if I wanted a turkey or ham. I said turkey because Christmas turkey is a tradition where I come from. Apparently though if my mom and dad had been raised in the traditions of their respective Swedish and Danish backgrounds we probably would have had ham for dinner on Christmas day. Ham was always an Easter Sunday tradition where I come from.

            The nervous woman two places behind me kept saying, “C’mon, c’mon, hurry up!” She’d been saying it for the last half an hour and so she wasn’t talking to anyone in particular.

            My volunteer at the shelves was a big guy with glasses and a baseball cap. There wasn’t much variety on the shelves. About a third of the first set was taken up by bags of those puffy Kuna Pop snacks. There was pancake syrup, cookies and a lot of other items that I didn’t want. I took a few apple Larabars and a hand-filled bag of tea bags. When we moved on to the second set of shelves he walked away to do something. I stood there waiting for him and the little old Filipina volunteer was already serving another client at the shelf behind me. She wasn’t deliberately pushing me but she was right up against me as she helped the other person. I grabbed a can of Peruvian squash and quinoa. How come we never get canned Peruvian guinea pigs up here? My volunteer returned, apologized and we moved on to the next set of shelves but then he left again. I took a can of chickpeas and a carton of spicy black bean soup. The little Filipina volunteer asked me who my helper was. I pointed to the guy with the cap, who was doing something up by the meat and dairy station. She said, “He’s not supposed to leave you!" "Well, he has" I told her. By the time he came back I was ready to move on to the meat and dairy section anyway and didn’t need his help anymore.

            Angie was at her station when I came in to the food bank, wearing her usual red Christmas hat with the long silver braids hanging down on each side. Is it supposed to represent Mrs. Santa Clause? A young woman was at the meat and dairy section by the time I got there. She asked if I wanted a turkey and I did. She struggled to lift the six-kilogram turkey and pass it over to drop it into my open bag. I didn't take any milk but I got two small strawberry and two raspberry yogourts. I received the usual three eggs but they were large this time and this time I also didn’t break them.

            As I was moving over to Sylvia’s vegetable station the woman who’d just served me called out that she was out of turkeys. Steve was asked to go and get some more.

Sylvia was looking very unstressed, as she didn’t have to pick out various vegetables for people this time. She lifted and handed me a very well made red recyclable thermal bag with a zipper on top from Wagener’s Meats and said, “Everything you need is in here!” In the bag was a 680 gram sealed container of mini red and orange tomatoes, a bag of fresh baby spinach, a 907 gram bag of rainbow carrots, five clementine oranges with the leaves attached, a 2.27 kg of russet potatoes, two yams, a small turnip, two yet to ripen mangoes and an almost ripe avocado. They were certainly well organized as far as the vegetables were concerned this Christmas season and the bag was a nice touch.

The line was still very long as I left the food bank. I took my haul home, put it away and headed back out to buy fruit at No Frills. On my way there I stopped at the Guardian Drug Store to go to the post office in the back and buy a mailing box in which to send some gift items to my daughter before Christmas. I couldn’t decide whether I needed the small 14 x 14 x 14 cm box or the next size up, which was 28.6 x 22.9 x 6.4 cm, so I bought them both. I enquired about shipping to Montreal before Christmas and she said that they could guarantee express post if I ship by Monday.

In the pharmacy the song, “I Saw Mommie Kissing Santa Clause” was playing and I wondered what the real consequences would be of a child having such an experience. If the child really believes in Santa Clause then would it be traumatic to see a mystical being sexualized before one’s young eyes? The implication of the song is that it’s really daddy in a Santa suit that is kissing mommy, but what if it turns out to be someone else? Would it really be a laugh for the child or for anyone if daddy had walked in to see mommy kissing Santa Clause? Isn’t Santa supposed to be married? Does he have an open relationship with Mrs. Clause? Maybe the elves are doing more than making toys while Santa is smooching children’s mothers on Christmas Eve.

At No Frills I just bought grapes, raspberries, yogourt, mouthwash and kitchen bags.

That night I watched two episodes of Peter Gunn.

The first story begins with an elderly man named Janos being shipped out of Hungary in a coffin. Some time later Janos comes to see Gunn at Mother’s and wants to hire him for protection. He is a gunsmith who was designing a rifle for freedom fighters in Hungary. Now he wants to finish it and give it to the US government but enemy agents are trying to get it from him. He is working in a cabin 20 km out of town and Gunn is supposed to meet him in a bus station early that morning. Gunn asks Lieutenant Jacoby to check on Janos. Gunn goes home but two enemy agents are waiting. They think Janos has passed him the plans for the rifle and they begin beating him. Jacoby knocks on Gunn’s door the agents tell Gunn to get rid of him. Gunn calls Jacoby “Marvin” and tells him to leave the information at “418 Clover Street”. Jacoby leaves and they are about to work Gunn over again when Jacoby busts in, dives to the floor and shoots both agents. Supposedly “418” is police code for a slugging. From what I could find it’s code for a fight with no weapons. At the bus station Janos is a no-show. The clerk says he left with a big man. Gunn goes to see Janos’s sister Anna and her son William. William tells Gunn where the cabin is. At Pine Bluff station there is an elderly cab driver in his car reading a newspaper. Gunn asks, “Are you for hire?” “Yup!” “Know where the Erlich cabin is?” “Yup!” “Wanna take me there?” “Nope!” “I thought you were for hire!” “You asked if I wanted to take you!” “Will you take me?” “I will!” “You don’t waste many words!” “Don’t waste nothing up here!” Gunn picks up the cabby’s newspaper and the headline is “Lindbergh Flies Atlantic”. Gunn says, “I see what you mean!” As Gunn approaches the cabin a guard named Albert stops him but Janos calls out that he can come.  Janos tells Gunn he doesn’t need him anymore but after pressing reveals that his family has been threatened. He says he gave the enemy agents plans to an old gun to buy some time. Janos shows Gunn the finished rifle and he’s impressed. Gunn says they have to take it back to the city. A car drives up but it’s William. It turns out that William is an enemy agent and he says that so is Albert. He gives Albert the rifle and orders him to test it from a distance by shooting Gunn between the eyes. Albert shoots William in the shoulder as it turns out he’s a double agent.

Anna was played by Edit Angold, who worked in German theatre until leaving for the States in the early 1930s.

The second story is more complicated. It begins with an employee named Jack leaving a diamond store at night with a hand truck full of boxes of diamonds. How unrealistic is that? He takes the diamonds down the street, turns into the alley and is shot. Next we see Gunn at the office of an insurance executive named Nickerman. He tells Gunn that jewel robbery today is a game. It used to be that robbers stole jewels, took them to a fence and got 10% of their value. Today they steal for the insurance and the insurance company pays. The recent robbery took $800,000 of diamonds. Rather than paying the victim $800,000 they locate the thieves and pay them $150,000. That way the insurance company saves $650,000. Nickerson wants Gunn to locate the thieves that made the recent robbery and pay them $150,000. Jack is in the hospital and someone named Benny comes to see him. It turns out that Benny, an old friend of Jack’s, was involved with the robbery. Jack was offered to take a tap on the head in the alley but he refused. Benny is telling Jack it wasn’t his idea for him to be shot. Gunn comes to see Jack and Benny tells him that a guy named Mike was behind the heist and that he hangs out in health food juice bars. At Mother’s we find out that tomorrow is Gunn’s 21^st birthday. Considering that Craig Stevens was 41 at the time that would be a pretty good trick. Gunn meets Mike at the juice bar. He orders a carrot juice and tells the bartender to put a head on it. They arrange to meet at the same place the next night to make the exchange. Meanwhile though, Benny calls the cops and tells them that Mike and his men were behind the robbery. Mike and his men are thrown in jail but Mike’s lawyer gets them released. They think that it was Gunn that tipped off the cops. Mike meets Gunn and they go to a place where Mike’s men are playing poker. Gunn is pushed inside and Gunn is gang beaten. Meanwhile a surprise birthday party is waiting for Gunn at his apartment. A lot of the quirky characters that have appeared in other episodes are there, including Herman the reformed safecracker, Wilbur the beatnik, his silent girlfriend Capri and Babby the pool shark. Jacoby arrives. The doorbell rings and Edie opens it. Gunn is standing there severely beaten, stumbles forward and falls face first in his own birthday cake. Now Mike has the $150,000 but Nickerman does not have the diamonds. While he is recovering Gunn makes a plan. Next Benny comes to the hospital to see Jack but finds his bed empty. Gunn is there with only one little bandage on his face after being beaten so badly and tells Benny that Jack died from blood poisoning. Jacoby tells Nickerman to make an appointment with Mike at the juice bar. When they make the exchange, Jacoby busts them. Next at the room where Mike’s men play poker there is a knock on the door. They hear Benny’s voice and a guy opens it but Benny punches him. Gunn comes in with a revolver. They disarm the men and are about to take them away when they begin to fight. Benny fights side by side with Gunn and holds his own. They throw the last punch together, Batman and Robin style, though that style hasn’t been invented yet. Jacoby gets Mike to confess to the theft with a guarantee he won’t be charged with murdering Jack. He can guarantee it because Mike has been tricked and Jack is still alive. Benny tells Jack that he’d told Mike not to do the job while Jack was working and so all is forgiven.