2013-03-04 Mon

Retired

Well, that didn't turn out as I'd expected.

Betty's son is getting married. Again. I'm invited. She expects me to wear a suit and tie.

So far so good; I look good, at my best, in a suit and tie.

A white shirt, and tie, she says. I object; After 25 years of wearing white-shirt-and-tie a la IBM, I switched to coloured shirts and matching ties. Only two suits (navy-blue and striped grey) but lotsa shirts, and three times as many ties.

A NEW white shirt, she says, none of those yellowed-old shirts you hang on to.

I object. Having neither had a shirt professionally laundered nor bought a white shirt in an even longer time, I know which option will cost me a small fortune.

So I drop two white shirts off across the street at my friendly local cleaner. My only reason for going there is that he accepts wire coat-hangers from Betty's recycling room, and the other cleaner doesn't.

He cleans both white shirts and suggests that I purchase only 100% cotton shirts and wear a white T-shirt underneath for added brilliance.

Brilliant!

I wear, proudly, my looking-like-new white shirt to Betty's. She is impressed.

I point out that THIS cost me only $2, whereas new 100% cotton white shirts start at around $70 in Toronto and rise to a price that makes it cheaper to RENT a car, fill it with gasoline, and drive to Buffalo to buy a shirt.

She agrees.

I've won?

Nope.

She points out that I should now carry ALL my remaining dress shirts across the street to my friendly local cleaner and have them all made-to-look-like-new.

Expensive!

The TTC

Again.

Just to save you some time, I looked up this word in my 1,700+ page Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Goon: Person employed to terrorize esp. political or industrial opponents; A stupid person, a dolt.

Here we are, 11:30 on a bright sunny morning, Monday 4th March 2013 about to drop me off at the Passenger-drop-off parking lot on the east end of Kipling Subway Station.

Ooops! Access to the lot is blocked by a white van. This is a drive-through lot, like the one at the west end of the station, one-way in, one-way out; a mere technicality, perhaps.

Who would block the driveway when every parking space within the lot is empty?

I toot the car horn, once, politely.

No response, no movement. I put the car in park-gear and get out to see.

No driver in the vehicle; no other occupant (unless they are stretched out fast asleep in the back of the van).

It is a TTC van. Must be some great emergency inside here?

You can see part of the sign "Kipling" on the recently-opened access point.

What you can't see is that the van is parked across the sloped footpath ramp.

Not only is the vehicle parked, it is STOPPED can you believe. That's a TTC-erected "no stopping" sign, telling people not to stop here.

I'm done taking pictures; I have a train to catch, and she has a doctor's appointment. Best we back up the car onto the public street alongside the lot, the street where TTC buses hate to squeeze past cars that are too lazy to park in the passenger drop-off lot.

My photo-session has attracted attention.

A hired goon of the TTC, in his orange beanie cap, has wandered out to see what all the fuss is about.

Within seconds a second hired goon appears, sizes me up, leaps into the van and drives it to park in the closest parking slot.

If you go back and look at the first photo, you'll see he parked in a handicapped spot. I wish I'd taken a photo of that, too.

Let's be generous and put the driver down as mentally handicapped

I grab my gear, kiss my witness, Betty goodbye, and enter the foyer to the friendly TTC service. Where podgy hired goon (now you'll understand the definition above) gets stuck into me, verbally, which is a big mistake on his part.

I didn't record the conversation on my cell phone (a pity, really) but it ran something like this:

"You shouldn't take photos of me; that's illegal".

Wrong; it's illegal to take photos on TTC property without a permit; it's NOT illegal to take photos of TTC property from outside the TTC property, and I took the photo from the far side of the car that had to park on the public street because your van was blocking the parking lot entry. (I know this because in 1983 I applied for and was granted a photo-permit so I could take photos of subway trains for modeling purposes).

"I can take those photos off you".

No you can't; those photos are my property, on my cell-phone, my property, and in my pocket, on my person. (And yes, I'm aware of the recent ruling that police can search a phone if it is not password-protected, but I don't tell orange beanie-baby that).

"I'll call the police!".

OK. You go right ahead and do that. I am not due downtown until four o'clock. Go right ahead and call the police.

"Well, I don't have anything to do until four o'clock either" (How telling! Spoken like a true idiot).

By now, of course, I know that I'm dealing with a bully, and since all bullies are cowards, he is backing away on the defensive, but all the time thinking he is on the offensive.

Right, I say. Call the police.

"I said IF I call the police".

The conversation runs out of steam at this point, orange-beanie bully-boy having run out of original thoughts.

The van-driver sanely remains silent.

The two guys, one with a screwdriver, fumbling with the turnstile mechanism remain quiet, while darting glances in my direction. Maybe they've never met Andy Byford, CEO of the TTC; maybe they don't know whether he's 5'6" and wears a gray woolen coat with a green cap.

And anyway, what am I doing here at this new entrance facility at the East end of Kipling Subway Station? Why aren't I using the old one at the West End?

Well, like many other subway and surface-route passengers at Kipling, I've watched as the TTC built this thing, year after year, dollar after dollar, but unlike most others, once it was opened I decided to inspect it.

This entrance is good for me. I have sore knees; it hurts to walk up or down steps, and the physiotherapist advises I take elevators, escalators or ramps whenever they are available.

So rather than fight the crowds at the west end for the privilege of 36 stair-risers, I opt to use this end, with the sloping ramp to the bus level and an escalator down to the subway train level.

I note in closing that the TTC decides it takes four employees (or hired help) to repair a turnstile.

1: One to wield a plastic-handled screwdriver.

2: One to observe an orange screw-driver being wielded.

3: One to drive the van. Traffic-sign literacy not a requirement.

4: One wearing an orange beanie to intimidate clients and customers.

Not one of these four goons was capable of sticking their head out the door to see what the honking was about until pictures were being taken.

You and your passengers can form your own conclusions.

Weight Loss

I walked to the Royal Bank at Dundas and Spadina this sunny afternoon. 1,953 steps. And according to Google maps, 1.9 kilometers; but that's driving in a car on streets, of course. I make a pixilated track, right-and-left through alleys and so on, but it's probably the same.

For the moment, a rough guide for me is that 1,000 steps registered on the odometer is one kilometer.