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16 June 2014
“Hi, Chuck, it’s a beautiful morning.”
“Yes, I’m surprised that Joy’s not here. I don’t know if It’s because she doesn’t do Mondays or if her fibromyalgia is bothering her. Last week she said that her legs were sore.”
“What is fibromyalgia?”
Chuck explained, “It’s when you don’t drink enough milk, or eat properly. She should be eating more liver. Chicken is also good, but she needs red meat as well. I don’t think she’s getting enough protein or iron.”
I said, “Joy once told me that, a few years back, she ate one meal a week, on Sundays. Then she’d pig out at the Mission.”
“I knew this woman once. I used to go out with her. She had some strange ideas about nutrition. She was always telling her daughter not to eat this, not to eat that. It got to the point that the girl was afraid to eat anything and became anorexic. She had no color to her skin — she looked like a ghost. The woman’s nephew got a job at a restaurant. He was warned about a scary lady that sometimes came in. One day, one of the other waiters said to him, “Here she comes, Scary Lady One and she has her daughter, Scary Lady Two with her. When he saw that it was his aunt and cousin, he dropped his apron and never came back.
“This hasn’t been a very good day for me. A lot of my Monday regulars haven’t shown up. I guess they must be on holidays. It’s surprising, because several of them said, ‘See you Monday, Chuck.’
“I see so many people with cell phones hanging out of their back pockets. Do you know the number one cause of cell phone damage. It’s when people go to the bathroom and their phone falls into the toilet bowl. It happens to women more than men.
I said, “Some of those phones cost up to a thousand dollars.”
“Some of them more than that. All I want is a phone that phones. I don’t need all of the other bells and whistles, but do you think I can find one? Of course, I’ve got that ongoing problem with Bell. I was in one of their stores and the guy told me they don’t make basic cell phones anymore. I said, ‘You’re a goddamned liar! You just want me to buy something more expensive, so you get a higher commission.’ I won’t go into that place again.”
I asked, “Do you remember when a person used to be able to pay their phone bill at the Bell office?”
“Yeah, the office was just down the street. You’d go in, they’d have wickets just like at a bank. You could pay cash — there was no problem. I don’t carry credit cards and I only use my debit card at the bank. My check is deposited right into my account. I regret making that arrangement, because my friends who get their’s by mail, have them a day earlier. When it gets toward the end of the month, a day can make a big difference.
“Did you hear that our Prime Minister Harper is going to do away with checks going out in the mail. It costs too much. They’re phasing this in over the next two years, so, after that, if a person doesn’t have a bank account they wont get a check. It’s just another way the government is trying to get out of paying people.”
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Streetsister 