Late Night Thoughts – Tim Horton’s World

Since the Covid-19 came in to play, I find we are living in a Tim Horton’s world. I do not know what it is like in the rest of the world but here in St. John’s in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, we line up for everything. We line up to get in, we line up to get out. Some places, like Kent, you have to line up for the main store, line up to get out, line up for the lumber yard, line up to get out, line up for the garden centre and line up to get out.  Even going to the dump on a Tuesday, you must line up for an hour.  On a Tuesday! That used to be a quick run for the retired guys and now it is turned into an ordeal.  Need to return your empties. Line up! 

Last week I cleaned up the yard and as a result I had stuff for the dump, the bottle depot and the recycle depot. Cheerily I loaded up the car in sections, first the stuff for the dump, then the beer bottles and finally the bags of recycling.  My wife says I am anal but that is just because she is too stubborn to put the cans of peas in the line next to the corn in the pantry. Geez!  So off to the dump I go. Tra la la la lee.  

I have always enjoyed going to the dump, especially now since we have the gentleman’s or rather the gentle person’s refuse centre. You can go, to the dump dressed in your tuxedo, drop off your garbage and then off to the wedding.  Amazing, isn’t it?  Some of you readers are probably getting excited now, you can feel the stirring in your bones.  Yes, I said ‘stirring’. What is it with that word?  I have most often heard it, regarding sexual stimulation such as, ‘a stirring in his loins.’  Who first created that phrase and what sort of picture were they hoping to conjure up?  Did they see a vision of three wart-faced witches standing around a pot on your loins, stirring vigorously?  Sorry, sometimes these things get to me. I am anal, right? Put the peas next the corn and be done with it, you schmucks!

I could never be a hoarder. I like getting rid of things too much.  My youngest son, often said that on garbage day, the air was electric.  That is a bit of an exaggeration, but he tends to do that when describing my habits. However, there are times that garbage day does not allow for all the debris you have, so a trip to the dump, or sorry, gentleperson’s refuse centre, is necessary. The dump was not always that way.  I still enjoyed going there, but it was much more hands on years ago.  You had to drag your car down the muddy trails through the mounds of unidentified gelatinous substances to the designated drop zone.  Then, you had to run through the gauntlet of gulls, anxiously awaiting the fresh supply of rubbish from your vehicle. I often thought of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, The Birds, when disposing of the household discards back in the day.  Taking out each bag from your trunk while keeping your eyes on these connoisseurs of rotten waste. Thinking in left brain, ‘Oh, The Birds was only a movie. The birds will not attack you. That is nonsense.’  But at the same time, your right brain visualizes a sudden attack of these feathered scavengers, swarming you and ripping your flesh from the bone.  Tearing your body parts, swallowing them whole, all the while savoring the tender delicacies of the nether region, for last, then leaving you in a hobbled mass of carrion meat and torn cartilage with your skeletal hands still holding onto the remnants of a garbage bag.  Perhaps I have an overactive imagination. I know! I know! It might go along with being anal. Peas next to the corn!

Well, thankfully, it is not like that anymore. It is much more civilized, and you only see the gulls in the far-off distance.  However, these days, you must wait.  They even have a guy posted before the overflow area, who tells you how long you will have to wait.  I guess, they give you a chance to leave if you don’t want to waste your time but once it goes in the car, that garbage doesn’t come out until I put it in the designated bin.  Do not say it, I am not listening!  So, after a fifty-minute shuffle, I am finally in and the bin guy gives me number six for garbage and seven for metal.  I unload in this area and look at my recyclables. I decide that I cannot do another wait at the recycle depot, so I leave these in the recyclable bin at the dump, keeping the beer bottles for the bottle depot. After all, that is where the real money is.  I leave the dump and drive to the depot only to find the rope gate is across the drive through area with a sign saying closed.  Three-thirty and it is closed! These guys got banker’s hours. The worse part was the next day was Canada Day and everything was closed so now the beer bottles had to stay in the car until Thursday.  Do not say it!

Thursday came soon enough, and it was off to the bottle depot. I waited an hour in the car line up to return my six and a half dozen bottles. Then it was off to Kent for three lineups. Simple enough, in the days before Covid-19 but now everything is an ordeal. Constant waiting. Waiting.  I am fed up with waiting. Never again will I bow to the rules and restrictions of this Corona society. I will free myself from the chains of this Kafka like world. I will stand up for my rights!  I could see myself leading a crowd of angry protestors with placards plastered with the words ‘Wait No More’, raging through the streets of our fair city. Gathering at city hall and dragging the mayor from his plush office while chanting, ‘Wait no more!’ Lost in thought I absent-mindedly utter those words again, ‘Wait no more!’

“Excuse me, can I take your order please?”

“Yes, er, um, I’ll have a small coffee and a plain donut.”