Flyday the 13th Pt. III

N.B. For the start of this story see "Flyday the 13th Pt. I and II"

Another 15 minutes walk back to ‘L’ from ‘A’ and I was back with security, stripping again.

A brief stroll from there and I’m through passport control and into the main part of the terminal. It’s late in the evening and I haven’t eaten a proper meal since breakfast, but from the escalator I spot Casey’s bar and grill. Don’t forget I still need the rye & ginger for my perfect red eye flight recipe, so the word "bar" actually reads "holy grail" in my mind and I saunter in to find myself a stool. Five minutes later and I’m sipping a beer, with a bacon double-cheeseburger on the way. That’s when the guy from the DOD (Department of Defense) arrived. I never did find out his name, so I’ll call him Ken.

Ken opens with a comment about how the cute-looking blonde on the opposite side of the bar doesn’t look very bright, in his best stage whisper and a Southern drawl that would send even Jerry Hall’s eyebrows disappearing over the back of her head like a venetian blind. I wince in utter embarrassment but laugh politely, and look towards the poor, innocent woman in the hope she’ll see my imploring, apologetic, innocent facial expression. Is it possible to say, "I really don’t know who this guy is but I’d knee him in the spuds if he wasn’t so much bigger and heavier than me," without actually saying a word?

I won’t bore you, dear reader, as Ken bored me, but here’s a sampling of Ken-isms paraphrased from the articulate philosopher himself:

• "Everything over in Iraq is fucked";
• "Iraqi dollars will be the same value as American dollars one day, that’s why I have two-and-a-half million of them";
• "I have a friend in the UK, maybe you know him?"
• "The strip bars in Calgary are shit";
• "I’m moving my family to Costa Rica soon."

"Poor bloody Costa Rica," I thought. "What ever did they do to Ken? I hope my housemate is back from his vacation down there before Ken stampedes his way there from Calgary."

This sets my mind off down its usual path of, "What I’d do if I ruled the world," and at this particular time I’m relishing the thought of being empowered to neuter whomever I pleased, whenever I felt like it. Would neutering recidivist criminals be so bad? I’m not asking to actually castrate them. That’s a little too harsh and, besides, why should hard-working prostitutes lose their potential income just because Ken got the chop? I suppose a scientist somewhere would have something to say about a long-term negative effect on the global gene pool. I wouldn’t want to be solely responsible for turning Earth into a planet of John Majors and Stephen Harpers.

I rammed the cheeseburger into my mouth with gusto so that even Ken DOD couldn’t possibly expect me to confer with him, and followed the swiftly guzzled beer with a double rye & ginger. Unfortunately, in paying attention to Ken so I could keep him and his flattop haircut sweet, I didn’t pay attention to the time. That said, as soon as the booze was gone I made my excuses and got up to leave, still clutching the 2,000 Iraqi dollars I’d been too polite to decline.

Thankfully Ken DODdered off in the opposite direction.

I would have gone directly to the departure gate but the Tim Horton’s nearby caught my eye. You have to hand it to Tim Horton’s. Pedalling a product that costs less than two dollars for a whole pint, and yet they still must rake the cash in. Every one I’ve been to has a queue – King Street East, King Street West, Finch station, St. Michael’s Hospital, Belleville, Yonge & Bloor, and now Pearson Airport. However, the unique difference with the one at the airport is a strange FAA regulation that states the entire franchise must be staffed solely with three-toed sloths.

The queue was already up to the edge of the seating area when I strolled in, and my position in the queue had me standing next to a woman waiting for a friend ahead of me in the queue. Brits are great at queuing. We invented it. If it were an Olympic sport we’d totally clean up. Apparently the good-natured queuing etiquette isn’t so much to do with British politeness or stiff upper lip, but actually stems from rationing during the Second World War. I can’t say the same for the others there though. Indeed, the woman in the scarlet coat (from this point on nicknamed Red Riding Hood) already has her poker face on.

Having stood for two minutes without moving I turn to Red Riding Hood and ask, "Did they order the roast goose?"

In my mind the comedy club audience is on the floor. However, Red Riding Hood looks at me as if there’s a large bogey protruding from one of my nostrils while I’m offering her a dogshit sandwich.

Another two minutes of standing in the same spot and I smile as I try again. This gregarious, approachable, sarcastic ‘me’ is the real me that’s been trying to escape from under all the mental illness and meds over the last year or so, thus when I recognise it I try to push it: "Y’know, the sad thing is that they’ve sold out of the doughnuts I really like."

Red Riding Hood remembers what it was to smile and some faint cracks appear at the corners of her otherwise cemented mouth.

"I know, I’ve never seen anything like it." It speaks.

At least another five minutes has elapsed already, but I move forward in the queue far enough to see the counter. By the time I’ve mentally chosen "Toffee Glazed" over my usual "Duchie" another five minutes have gone the way of the dodo. I can now see the cashier, who looks more stoned than I am. I can only conclude that the nuances of retail management aren’t natural to the humble sloth, because despite my distance from the counter I can clearly see the guy there bashing the crap out of the till. His mouth is slightly open and there’s a distinct sheen to his bottom lip that I can only assume is drool, because it likely isn’t lip-gloss. His eyes arc downward to the same button on the till that he is repeatedly pressing.

By the way, if you’re one of those people whose response to a sluggish PC is to right-click the mouse over and over, don’t. It’s fucking annoying. The PC will actually remember at least a few of those mouse clicks, so when it actually catches up again, whatever is in the background will end up getting clicked on with sometimes disastrous results. Save changes? Nope. Remove browsing history? Yep. Format C:/ drive? Yep. Oh shit.

See what I mean?

Anyway, thankfully for me, the primate trying to wear out the till button, and everyone else in the queue, the supervisor comes to the rescue. You can tell important people in retail by their keys. A key that goes into a till means some semblance of financial responsibility and, therefore, seniority. A big long key is probably the safe key, which means that whilst they might be important, they’re probably shite at customer service and have no better idea where that thing you’re looking for is than you have. A big fat pendulous bunch of keys probably means branch manager, so grab them because even if you can’t get any shop staff to do what you want, they will.

The supervisor takes over at the till, but before I can breathe a sigh of relief and start to properly anticipate my six mouthfuls of toffee-flavoured hydrogenated fat, my world crumbles. The supervisor is now repeatedly hammering exactly the same key on the till that the drooling guy was. Not once or twice either, but like a fucking woodpecker building the nest that his and his family’s life depends on.

Isn’t that the dictionary definition of insanity? Repeating the same action over and over but expecting a different result? Now I can feel my own mouth starting to gape and the saliva commencing its dribble. There’s me, officially toys-in-the-attic, gone fishing, one-flew-over-the-woodpecker’s-nest-crazy. Hopped up on 225mg of something that does something to my brain. In therapy twice a week and recording everything that isn’t sheer fucking elation in a fucking journal I have to carry around every fucking where I go because I never know when the next anxiety will strike. Here I am, coffee supply in the hands of someone who thinks you can get a different result out of a solitary till button by whacking it harder. Maybe she should be a boxer. Maybe she took that scene from Pulp Fiction too literally where Uma Thurman has to punch her way out of a buried coffin. Maybe the supervisor thinks she’ll be like Uma Thurman if she mimics the same behaviour.

Another five minutes agonisingly disappear.

"What would I do, given the choice?" I wonder. Smash the till? No, punch the supervisor. No! Smash the till over the supervisor. Oh, what about the primate? Hmm…how can I get both of them AND smash the till at the same time? Ah – eureka - slam one of their hands in the till drawer, smash the other one over the head with the till, and while the first one’s still screaming in agony, pour a gallon of inferno-temperature "triple triple" into his wide open mouth. It’d just be a toss-up between whether the scalding liquid got him first, or the inevitable heart attack from consuming a quart of bubbling double cream.

Then the supervisor, bless her, has a eureka moment of her own: "I’ll use a different till." And so she does, slightly to the left of the dead one.

Oh yes, that’s right dear reader. While all this had been going on, plus whatever was going on while I was too far back in the queue to see, the sloths were wrestling the same broken till while the other TWO tills stood dormant. I step out of the queue, turn around, and give Red Riding Hood the gritted teeth and faux "I just won a Formula One grand prix" victory air punch. She promotes herself from crooked smile to the dizzy heights of full-on chortle.

It takes me yet another five minutes to make it from the grand prix victory to the point of ordering my doughnut and small double-double.

Fat of the land in hand, I stand briefly to contemplate the airport’s other offerings before deciding that going anywhere other than the gate will only result in me spending more money. Besides, I’m three quarters through Billy Connoly’s biography and have the opportunity to sit down, calm down, and read at the gate before getting on board the plane. I hit the first post-9/11 ‘extra’ security check once past the shops and other attractions.

"Which flight are you catching?" says the woman in a uniform that has me captivated because I can’t figure out whether it’s blue or green.

"AC858 to London," I smile, half-eaten doughnut in one hand and virgin coffee in the other.

"Hmm…I think that flight already left."

Oh these witty airport people. There’d be no pleasure in their job at all if they couldn’t pull the leg of the occasional traveller. I assume that she’s clocked my bloodshot eyes and decided she’ll teach me a lesson.

"Reeeeeally," I croon. "The 23:55?"

"AC858 went at 22:55," she replies, reading my boarding card aloud.

Uh oh. No, surely not. I was here in plenty of time, I didn’t really dally anywhere…what could have happened? I’m looking for the candid cameras but there aren’t any.

"If you’re lucky it might have been delayed – a lot of flights have because of the snow. But if I were you I’d run to the gate," she stresses.

I’m not sure what kind of run she means. There’s the running for people who aren’t as organised as I am…OK..usually am. In that case ‘running’ actually means stop shuffling your feet and shopping, fatty, and get to the gate so we don’t have to wait. Then there’s the other running, the Olympic medal kind.

"What, all the way there?" I gasp incredulously.

She pauses briefly before replying, squinting back at my slight incoherence, caused by the fact that all moisture has drained from my mouth, the roof of which my tongue has been busy gluing itself to using excess toffee glaze.

"Yes, all the way – you might make it."

I don’t really have the time to figure out how my mind managed to convert a flight time of 22:55 into 23:55. I cram the rest of the doughnut into my mouth and ask her, "D’you like coffee?" It sounds more like, "Dwoo lye cawa?" and, upon reflection, I probably should have asked before filling my mouth with dough. However, at the time I didn’t wait for her answer, I just stood the –still – virgin coffee on the desk next to her because, after today, I knew a coffee scalding would be more than likely on top of all else if I tried to keep it.

I think both feet were already off the ground at the same time as I slipped the other rucksack strap over my shoulder. It soon became apparent that (a) I’d only put my first patch on today, and (b) the gate was a lot further from the terminal than I ever could have anticipated. What followed was a Doctor Who montage of running through endless corridors, pausing only to cram my lungs back down my windpipe as I paused briefly at the next TWO checkpoints before reaching the gate. By that time I was losing a lot of liquid in the form of sweat. My T-shirt was glued to my spine. Even my palms were damp. Behind me several innocent bystanders were now proud owners of a Puma ‘Del Mundo’ footprint somewhere on their person.

"You just missed it," was all the woman in the same blue, no green, no blue uniform said. Then she launched into a guilt-inducing description of the baggage handlers having to clamber all over the plane in the pelting snow to remove my case bla bla bla. I don’t believe in karma, but I’m pretty certain it serves them right for losing people’s luggage all the time. I was laughing on the other side of my face when they lost my suitcase the next bloody day though.

But that’s another story. A story that includes how I was paired off with a non English-speaking Brazilian who’d missed his flight to Rio, but managed to use that and my charm to get hotel vouchers. About how all my toiletries AND my anti-nutter medicine was in my lost suitcase, leaving me only 72 hours’ worth before I ran amok with a fully-loaded, semi-automatic Tim Horton’s cash till and killed everyone in Pearson terminal one. About how we thought we’d missed the last bus to the hotel but were saved at the last moment. About how I missed my flight at 22:55 but still didn’t make it to bed until 2:30 the next morning, and then had to get up again at 5:30 to make my rebooked flight.

However, even though I don’t believe in god, allah, buddha, yoda, the tooth fairy, or anything that comes out of George Bush’s mouth, I do try to believe in human nature. Even though I think we’re a species destined for extinction of our own making, probably driven by our own vanity or the love of money, there was one last positive happening that I will recite.

It’s circa 1:30, pitch black, and –20 degrees or so, excluding the wind chill factor that’s turning my gonads from walnut to sultana-sized as it whistles up my trouser leg. My nicotine patch has lost its juice, and I have only one left in my hand luggage that I need for my rebooked flight. As Pele and I stand outside waiting for the hotel bus to appear through the snowstorm, I notice a guy smoking and ask to sponge a cigarette.

He gives me three. Five minutes later, he walks back to me again and gives me a book of matches.

That’s human nature, that’s indicative of what we are all capable of, and that’s the kind of behaviour we will all have to exhibit if we are to continue surviving on this small planet. When you’ve decided there’s no omniscient being who, despite doing bugger-all up to a certain point, suddenly and uncharacteristically created everything in six days because he/she/it was bored one Monday, you realise that it’s all up to us. No virgins will be waiting when you die. No bright light. Jesus does not save because if he ever existed at all, he’s now long dead. And, most of all, none of us will be coming back as cats, squirrels, or anything else with the possible exception of crude oil in many centuries’ time.

I’ll leave you with that this xmas which, if you’ve been paying attention to all three parts of this story, you’ll have noticed I’ve been spelling with an ‘x’ not a ‘C’.

Have a good one.

Flyday the 13th Pt. II

N.B. For the start of this story see "Flyday the 13th Pt. 1"

Strangely, I didn’t buy a copy of "The Little Book of Calm". I didn’t think to ask whether Indigo had a gigantic ‘Encyclopedia Britannica’ of calm either, or maybe the DVD box set.

Outside at street level again with the last xmas pressies safely stashed, the subzero temperatures knee’d me in the groin as I struggled to drag the housebrick through the mall door. I elected not to wear gloves because gripping the suitcase handle would be an issue, so I weaved as swiftly as possible between the zombie-like shoppers to get to a bus stop I’d never been to before in order to catch a bus I’d never caught before. The three text messages from someone special beeped in my pocket once I’d made it back up the other eight circles of hell, but responding was tricky with frostbitten fingers, along with the fact that I’m a man.

Nope, I’m not too proud to admit that walking, dragging (the housebrick), navigating, and texting all at the same time would have been asking to get mown down by a courier bike or taxi. Either that or I’d have simply forgotten to breathe in and out.

Anyway, long story short I made it to my generous friend’s new loft via bus, gatecrashed her girls’ night in and made them ALL wait to exchange their xmas pressies, sank a glass of champagne, fixed her bedroom light, and took my ‘medicine’. I stumbled into a taxi at around eight-thirty with that familiar ‘soap dried on face’ feeling, a rumbling stomach despite the pizza I’d just eaten quicker than osmosis, and a wide smile. It didn’t even bother me when the taxi driver asked me which way I thought he should drive to the airport.

"Uh, North-West I guess," was all I said. It was slightly more constructive than, "forwards" or, "towards the airport, dumbass".

It is odd when taxi drivers ask that question though. It would be like me asking a PR client how they thought I ought to launch their company or write their press release, and smacks of the inherent frustration associated with non-directional therapy. I’ve often compared the latter to reading a ‘whodunnit’ novel, frantically turning to the last page expecting to find out who did murder Professor Plum in the library with the toothpick, only to find a last line that reads, "Well, who do YOU think killed him and how does that make you feel?"

Like punching the author in the face, frankly. Oh – and then stomping on his hands with crampons so he can’t write any more books with annoying endings.

It only cost me $60 for a lovely meandering tour of moonlit Northwest Toronto and some delightfully inane commentary on why it’s no fun to push a broken-down taxi in the snow. That said, I was still relieved to see the 427 – Toronto’s major North-to-South artery feeding the international airport amongst other things - once we’d finally found it. My cunning plan was finally coming together.

Y’know, getting mildly stoned for the red eye really is a lovely way to travel by air. Airlines could have a field day with the advertising straplines too. "Air Canada: flys you higher than any other." I long for the day when marijuana is legalised in Canada and the conception of Mary Jane’s Planes as the incumbent low-cost carrier. Finally one would be able to purchase pot by using a menu and discussing varieties with a sommellier, as one does in the open minded, adult (no pun intended) and mature city of Amsterdam. No more seedy (again, no pun intended) meetings and discreet ‘handshakes.’ No more tense deliberation about whether an offer of a post-dinner soiree toke would be the crowning glory of the hostess with the mostess, or a reason for the guests to never grace that home again. No more supply from a hairy-arsed farmer in Northern Ontario who might or might not be linked with either the Hell’s Angels, or activity that could be considered genuinely criminal rather than just doing what everyone wishes he could do legally.

I’d be more than happy to pay tax on my pot. I’d buy organic too, recycle the Ziploc bags, and even review different varieties here on my blog. Unfortunately we live in a world where the concept of personal choice is warped. It’s perfectly legal to drive a neon-yellow Hummer, one step down in the military food chain from an armoured personnel carrier, around downtown Toronto with one person in it. Crushing cyclists and pets alike, and causing more pollution and wear-and-tear to the roads than urban planners could ever have planned for. It’s perfectly legal to sell, buy, and smoke cigarettes when everyone knows they have the same chemicals in them that both sides used to kill each other in the muddy, horrific European trenches of the first World War. It’s perfectly legal for a publicly traded company to pay its CEO a whopping bonus akin to a Lotto win despite the fact that thousands of employees were laid off that quarter and are now homeless and starving.

Legality, it seems, depends on whether you can afford to pay for a better lawyer than the other guy. Once again, it’s not so much a question of ethics, as a question of cash flow.

None of this mattered as I grinned at the check-in assistants at area ‘L’ in Pearson International Airport. The queue was short, I had plenty of time, and the noise of the belligerent children escaped me as Ella Fitzgerald’s soothing voice crooned my ears under the muff-like, doughnut-sized headphones. Unfortunately, the geographically-challenged taxi driver and the horrors of xmas shopping in Indigo were only precursors to what was to come.

The Air Canada woman at the check in desk was amiable and lovely. Receiving the news that my housebrick was 28½ pounds and therefore a bit over the weight limit was like receiving a tender massage of the buttocks. I cheerfully skipped off to the right where the other passengers wouldn’t be able to see my neatly rolled underwear as I rifled through the open case to find something that weighed about three or four pounds, and would fit into the rucksack I had as hand luggage.

Clothes? Nope, too light and bulky. Portfolio? Nope, not heavy enough and wouldn’t quite fit in my rucksack. Calendar? Nope, I’d have to fold it in half to get it into my rucksack, thereby instantly transforming a stocking filler into paper mache. Aha – the ‘picnic’ wine holder with cleverly secreted corkscrew and penknife, complete with a bottle of Cave Springs something-or-other that I’d kept in a wine cellar for two years for a special occasion. Relatively small, surely up to or over the requisite three pounds in weight, and would just about fit in my rucksack. Perfect.

Thankfully the suitcase was easier to get shut the second time around. I hadn’t brought the springboard to the airport with me anyway, and wasn’t keen on the idea of doing WWE-style body slams in front of a line of cheering yet bemused fellow passengers. Although, just for shits ‘n’ giggles it would have been pretty funny to do the whole Hulk Hogan rip-the-shirt-off thing. However, I didn’t think the camp boot camp instructor posing as an Air Canada customer service attendant would be amused. He was already eyeing me suspiciously, so – as is my way – I tackled the problem head-on.

"What’s the weight limit on suitcases again? I’m sorry but I can’t remember."

"Ten kilograms sir," came the curt, crisp reply. Not quite service with a smile but I was nonplussed. "There’s some scales over there you can use."

I followed his gaze behind me to find two industrial-sized scales, and wheeled my case back over to them. It was slightly less painful now to lift the case (I know, what a weakling, barely thirty pounds and I’m worried about hernias). This was going to be easy. I got the case on and read the display: "20.8".

"Twenty? Twenty kilograms! That can’t be right?"

And now the down side of being mildly sedated at the airport was starting to tell.

"What’s the conversion rate between pounds and kilograms?" I ask the camp boot camp instructor. But, he’s distracted by another passenger so I sneak back to the front of the queue while he’s looking elsewhere. Thankfully the case is underweight and I wave it goodbye into the magic maze of conveyor belts.

Being a naturally anxious chap I intended to go through security immediately. However, in the queue I realised that the one thing I’d brought with me to drop off at my friend’s, her diabetic glucometer, was still in my rucksack. I called her.

"So, thanks again for having me over again this evening, and for the – ahem – charity."

"Oh, no problem! Anytime! So where are you now, on the plane?"

"Er, no, actually I’m just about to go through security. And it’s just struck me that I still have your glucometer kit with me. D’you know whether it’s legal to take this on a plane, or will I get the rubber glove treatment from the customs people?"

Turns out that the glucometers that diabetics use, despite the inherent syringes, over-the-counter medicine, and other medical, pointy things, are perfectly legal to take on a plane. I guess Al-Qaeda never thought of trying to overcome the pilot with insulin. "Hah! Air Canada infidel, try eating this doughnut with sprinkles now and you will…process the sugar faster than my cousin’s camel through the desert. [Aside] Ah, Akbar, we may have a problem…" With glee I strip for the stoney-faced security people, who mercifully don’t make me take off my trainers in front of everyone and cause an international incident. Alas, the smile was soon wiped from my face when the computer says 'no' woman informs me, "You’re only allowed 100 millilitres of liquid on the plane."

Oh fuck. The wine. The travel bag. The fact that I’d been preserving it like a good little vintner for two years, perhaps the longest I’ve ever managed to hang on to a bottle of alcohol in my entire life without drinking it. The fact that I was going to label the bottle "to Mum" and the case "to Dad" thereby enabling the opportunity for me to crack a joke about marital cooperation, and them the opportunity for riposte given that I’m currently going through a divorce. Bugger.

"Eff..that’s what I took out of my case to make the weight limit," I gasped. "Can I put it into left luggage?"

"You can put it into storage if you like."

"Where is that exactly?" I implored.

"In area ‘A’, back through the check in area."

Great, I’d just checked in at area ‘L’. With about 200 metres between areas, that meant that even once I’d got back through to the check in area I had a (carry the four, take away the number I first thought of, divide by pi…) 68 kilometre walk ahead of me. I paused for a moment, wondering why the customs Nazi had taken such exception to white wine when there was also a penknife and a corkscrew in the travel case. Maybe nobody ever tried to take over a passenger jet with a corkscrew. I suppose in the grand scheme of things, or more specifically in the terrorist’s weapon-of-choice miscellany at least, a corkscrew was a pretty un-intimidating weapon. Professor Plum never had to fear the corkscrew. You don’t see BBC headlines saying how terrorists attacked a densely populated tourist area and unmercilessly caused all the wine to turn to vinegar by corking everything in sight.

"GOD IS GOOD!!! GOD IS GREAT!!!" Pop! Radical islam meets Keith Floyd.

It took about 15 minutes to get to area ‘A’. Time was ticking, although the possibility of actually missing my flight altogether hadn’t even occurred to me yet.

To be continued...

Flyday the 13th Pt. I

I now feel more like I'm living life to the full because I missed my first flight ever the day before yesterday.

That's one step closer to the international jet-setting playboy lifestyle, the rugged, unpredictable, slightly wild quality that women often drone on about as a desirable characteristic in single men. All I need now is a body like Daniel Craig, preferable without the duckface, and it'll be simply a matter of time before paparazzi are chasing me through Paris tunnels.

Trouble is, I didn't miss it because the plane exploded. Nor was I involved in a cross-London high-speed car chase, firing twin Glock 9s out the window. I didn't have to stop to give a ten year old mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, save a cat from a tree, or create a complex algorithm that solves the global economic crisis created by George W. Bush and the planet’s retail banks chucking cash around like confetti.

Really, I was just a pawn of fate's annual xmas comedy of errors. One can’t lay blame at any individuals’ door when it took so much organisation, so much co-operation in order to bring about the smorgasbord of disasters that day.

Even getting to the airport proved to be a slight palaver. I’d had to alter my flight once already and, in the absence of either better options or common sense, I’d picked the red eye. Red eye flights aren’t all that bad and, in fact, one of my best transatlantic flights ever was a red eye. I did cheat though. Shortly before jumping in the taxi to the airport late one evening I consumed a rather large joint, thereby almost incapacitating myself beforehand. A quick top-up of rye & ginger in the airport bar and, "Hey presto!" - instant coma. I’m sure the babies screamed, the warning lights bonged, and the other passengers coughed, sneezed, and farted their way 3,500 miles from London to Toronto but I didn’t sense a thing. Bliss. With my trusty iPod and bullshit-cancelling headphones I may as well have been plugged into the Matrix.

So, having the benefit of this experience but being persona-non-marijuana I elected to pop into an understanding and charitable friend’s place en route to the airport. With case packed, nicotine patch applied, and clothing selected to maximise the quantity of travel document-sized pockets about my person I TTC’d my way Westwards into Toronto from the East, pausing at Bay to run to the Indigo book store there at Bay & Bloor. I had one last book to add to my portfolio of xmas pressies that I thought I would, "Just pop in and grab" on the way.

Oh dear. I’d forgotten about the whole xmas thing, and that one doesn’t "pop" anywhere at this time of year.

Now, nicotine patches are great. I’d strongly recommend them. I’ve used them many times in the past when I’ve given up smoking. However, even the strongest one at 21mg isn’t quite enough for a phlegm-ridden yellow-fingered mobile chimney like me. So, I already had that green glow in the eyeballs that indicates an imminent Incredible Hulk-esque episode. Then there’s my suitcase. I’m not one of those people who insists on dragging their toiletries around with them. In fact, unless its something life-saving then I’ll probably pack it into my case so I don’t have to drag it around the airport. At hip-height and two feet wide, with super zip-expansion mode engaged, it wasn’t the lightest of suitcases. Resembling a giant upended housebrick with a handle, it had the potential to twist ankles, crush household pets, and carve grooves into everything but the hardiest of concrete floors. Even so, it did have wheels at least so thanks to prior reconnaissance missions I was able to navigate the elevators sufficiently as to make the journey downtown as stress-free as possible.

Bloor Street was like Bosnia as usual. Store windows that countless retail minions had gone to such trouble to merchandise to the hilt were masked beneath wooden planks and scaffolding poles, and traffic seemed to breed like rabbits that evening as the inevitable construction made Toronto’s busiest intersection look like a swarming anthill from above. And, despite having lived in Canada for three years now, I still have trouble reorienting my compass when I emerge from a subway station I haven’t used in a while so the first task was to figure out which way I was facing. I desperately tried to look like I knew what I was doing as I passed the same Starbucks for the third time, no doubt to the amusement of those who’d completed their shopping and now viewed the carnage outside with smugness as the steam from their coffee clouded the glass in front of them. Still, at least I wasn’t lost for days in the underground warren of ‘Path’ corridors. The absence of a magic ball of string or ten-pound bag of breadcrumbs about my person had caused me to refuse that option in favour of the cold at street level. But, as Billy Connolly says, "There’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes," and I had dressed accordingly.

Finally the familiar purple signage came into view. This was to be a quick mission, an extraction of specific items from an establishment I knew would have them. Once in the doors I immediately sought a map that would lead me to non-fiction amongst the "new", "hot picks" and "top ten" signage festooned at eye level. No such map existed, and not wanting to navigate a staircase with my oversize baggage unless I had to, I had to ask where non-fiction was before I could proceed.

"Just down those stairs and to the left," said the clown-like woman caked in cosmetics.

And so it began. What was a deserted staircase seemed to attract people like flies to shit, and before I’d reached the basement my mood was already beginning to follow the curvature of my spine downwards. The zigzagging continued as I manoeuvred the overgrown housebrick around tacky cardboard seasonalities positioned like landmines with the intention of trapping the unwary shopper in as many cul-de-sacs as possible. I find the book I need and head towards the calendars section.

So, having worked in retail for five years I’m well aware that shops take the majority of their annual receipts in the last few weeks before Christmas. At my particular branch of W.H. Smith in the UK, circa 1993, we’d take around 30 per cent of our annual sales in the last 10 or so days up to Christmas. It was pandemonium, and there was only enough time to sell rather than any of the many other routine duties. It takes a lot more people than usual to spend that much money, so one can expect the quantity of store traffic to increase by MORE than 30 per cent because Christmas draws some people into the store who wouldn’t normally go there.

Why, oh why then, does Indigo believe that stuffing the store with more stock, more shelves, more fixtures and fittings, carousels, shelf-edge-strips, free-standing merchandisers and staff will give them the best Christmas possible? Why? Because it’s all about money. This obviously isn’t a brand that tries to differentiate itself on customer service or a pleasurable shopping experience. Like the cause of the subprime crisis, the mortgage defaulting, the foreclosures, and the economic slump spreading round the planet as freely as a weather system, it’s because somewhere there’s a bunch of impatient, greedy shareholders who want their slice of the pie NOW. Who cares if the shoppers themselves are stacked almost as neatly as the books? Who cares if there’s arguments, fights, heart attacks, and stress just as long as each and every pleb buys their target average of $25.16 in books before they keel over and die? Who cares what the human cost is as long as in the glossy Q4 financial results booklet resting on a Jasper Conran coffee table in a Wall Street office somewhere, it has the words, "we achieved our budgeted sales targets" in the first paragraph of a smug CEO’s executive summary.

A sudden jolt that almost dislocates my shoulder disrupts my train of thought. I turn my now beetroot-coloured head around to look over my shoulder and realise one of my suitcase wheels is wedged under a crappy-looking book bin dressed with tinsel. "Fuck, I wish I had some cigarettes with me."

At the calendars the self-centred rampant consumerism is just as evident in the shoppers themselves. I’m red, I’m panting, the sweat is practically running into my eyes and I have a facial expression that could cause instant explosive diarrhoea in a total stranger at 50 yards. It’s bloody obvious that I’m not having much fun and want to get out of there, but the couple in front of me, completely blocking the already merchandise-narrowed aisle haven’t even noticed me because they’re obsessed with the critical decision of whether a puppy or kitten calendar would be best.

"Excuse me, can I just squeeze through here please?" gets me an indignant look from her and a grunt from him. I try my best to run his foot over with the suitcase as I struggle past but miss, pissing me off even more. There’s so little room to manoeuvre down there in the ninth circle of hell sundries section that it takes me two laps to find a wide enough space at the end of one of the shelves where I can park my suitcase and head back to the display.

The week before I won a ‘Maxim’ 2009 semi-pornographic girlie calendar in an impromptu game of pub bingo. I’d already decided that it was going into my Dad’s xmas stocking but I wanted something similar for Mum. Ideally, something with 12-pages of baby-oiled, stripped-to-the-waist firefighters. However, when I get to the appropriately raunchy part of the calendar display it becomes evident that the brand manager of that section at Indigo’s head office is a straight guy. "What calendars do all the gay men buy?" I wonder as my eyes dart across more tits and ass than the R.S.P.B. and a donkey sanctuary combined. I start to feel gradually self-conscious as more and more people notice the intense-looking, sweaty man meticulously rifling through the soft porn shelf by shelf. In the end I give up, go for my back-up calendar, and follow a circuitous route to the cash desk akin to the trail left by an inebriated spider who stumbled through wet ink.

The teenage twat in the queue did his best to sidle in front of me with the stereotypical hunched shoulders and dragging feet, but must have been able to feel my gaze burning holes in the back of his cranium. Once the stench of burning hair had got to be too much he stopped and offered me back in front of him as we heard the angelic "next please" from the pearly gates that lead to the real world outside. I did say "thank you", but in a tone of voice that really said, "Good, that means I don’t have to suck your eyes out and skull fuck you after all, you lanky shit".

I threw my cash at the cashier and made a break for freedom, only to have my suitcase snared again, this time between the counter and a temporary display of, "The Little Book of Calm" books.

To be continued...