How I Bought the Milk
a Toronto vignette by Jason Capodimonte
I needed a litre of milk, right? So I figure I'll pick it up on the way home.
I get off the train at the subway station nearest to my place and go up one flight to the mezzanine. Highlight of the mezzanine is an ugly mural. Then I go up another flight to the cave with the bus and streetcar platforms. Then I go up another flight to the street.
The supermarket was recently built over the subway station, but of course there's no entry from the station to the store. You have to walk twenty yards or so down the street first. Then once you're inside you have to walk back past booths flogging phones and RRSPs and cigars (they call it "a street of shops"). Then you go upstairs again.
This time you're on a conveyor belt. They call it a "movator," no less, but even I know there's no such word as movate. And if it's supposed to be Latin, from movere, then I just happen to know that the only legitimate construction is motor. What the hell – you go upstairs on a big conveyor belt.
At the top of the conveyor belt you are now only about a day's walk from the milk.The staples are all at the other end of the store, and it's a long store. In fact, you're not really in the store yet, but in a Mövenpick. If you want to eat at the Mövenpick, rather than buy food to take home, you've got another flight to manage. If you want milk you've got to start off on the trek through the Mövenpick, past the newsstand, past the bulk section, past the drugstore and herb store, past the housewares, all the way to the gift shop. On the way I wander into some of these sections, despite knowing that that's what they want me to do and that that's why they're making me walk forever to get to the freaking milk.
I collect the milk. I realize I need grapefruit juice, so I get that. I realize I need soy sauce so I get that – the good stuff is on the bottom shelf. Then I go pay for it. Since it's off-peak I don't have to wait long. To leave, of course, I have to walk back to the other end of the store. Then I go down another conveyor belt. At the bottom of the conveyor belt stands the employee who is always standing there. Her duty apparently is to avoid looking at the customers, a duty she discharges religiously. I leave.
If I wanted I could go back down into the bowels of the subway station, sit on a cold concrete bench for a while, then take a bus which would drop me almost at my corner. It's a short walk, though.
How I Bought the Milk © John FitzGerald, 2000
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