I’m not sure when or why it happened, and the truth is that I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve become a collector of unusual drinking glasses. Whenever I find myself at the St. Lawrence market, I gravitate to the tables where they sell them. Who knows, maybe I’ll find one with a baseball player or a superhero on it?!! For me, that would be a real find, like discovering a lost civilization.
Recently, when I take the dog for her walks, I sometimes pop into the Value Village at Queen and Logan to see if they have any hidden gems. The other day I noticed that a bird had flown into the store. This very much excited the staff, who were all trying to figure out how to remove it from the premises.
After devising some sort of plan, a half dozen of them began to roam the aisles of the store in a state of happy agitation, as if they were embarking on a lynching. Half of the people had a fragment of a cardboard moving box, that when near the bird, they were all to hold over their head (like a Vote Obama sign), thus creating some sort of “bird funnel” that would flush out their quarry into the waiting arms of the hunters of the group.
The hunters were two middle-aged men armed with found objects. One of these men did not speak English. He had bad teeth and a nervous giggle. He carried with him a white, mesh curtain, which he was presumably going to use as a net, like a gladiator. The other man, who wore a tight-fitting sweater, looked like he’d always wanted the opportunity to tell his boss to Fuck Off. He was holding a tennis racquet, with which he was clearly hoping to kill the bird.
I watched with stunned fascination.
The bird, sitting on the railing of the activewear section, was approached by the mob. A soft, gay man with a waxed mustache and a Paul Frank t-shirt that the revealed pale, tattooed flesh around his belly whenever he lifted up his box portion, lisped, “Oh, I don’t know if this is a good idea.” The person he was speaking to, also holding a piece of a cardboard box, yelled “BIRD!” and they all raised their pieces of cardboard, about five seconds after the bird had flown past them into the VHS section.
I suggested to them that they might prop a door open, and that in short course the bird would fly back out, just as it had likely come in. This seemed to disappoint the group immensely, particularly the man with the tennis racquet.
As this was unfolding, a woman fell into conversation with me about my dog, Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund. She was completely taken with the dog, praising her shiny coat and bright eyes, saying “it’s so nice when an animal is loved!” She cast a look at the man with the tennis racquet, and then at the little dog wagging her tail, and she shook her head. Looking away, just slightly emotional, she said, “I’m sorry, I just don’t know how a person could be cruel to an animal,” her mind clearly traveling back to some moment in her past.