Keep It Clean

This almost didn't happen, but a few things from the weekend stick out in my mind. I must share them. I was sitting in a McDonalds in North Van, nursing a hang over with a Big Breakfast, there's something terribly unfair about the fact that the Sausage McMuffin, and the Big Breakfast are the same thing, but in different packaging. I looked around at the clientele, old people mainly, drinking discount coffee in small cups. Photogray coated glasses or clip on sunglasses, you couldn't see their eyes, but could tell most of them were lonely. Except for one guy. Just to my right, he had finished his breakfast long ago, the wrapping sitting on the plastic tray beside him, must have been Hot Cakes I thought. I noticed him right away because he was fully engrossed in his 12" G4 iBook. I was amazed, I had never seen this before. A senior citizen using a computer, and not in some library, this was a real machine, this was an iBook in McDonalds. He had a digital camera hooked up to his laptop, and from what I could tell was making slide shows in iPhoto. He must have been 75. I thought, there's a commercial here somewhere. Later, waiting for the ferry, killing time, smoking in the parking lot, he emerged from the yellow arched, brown and red McDonalds. Carrying his technology in an old vinyl bowling ball bag, he walked with a little shuffle, small steps, but still lifting his knee's higher than necessary. It seemed like the walk of someone that had been ridiculed for much of their lives, but he was having the last laugh. As he strapped his bag to the gas tank of his Suzuki GS750, and rode away, the icy stares of the widow's watching through their dark sunglasses followed his understated red helmet through the parking lot, and out onto the highway. Getting old doesn't seem so bad.

Later, on the ferry to the Sunshine Coast, I found a place in the sun, and sat on the hard metal deck floor outside, painted grey, with a non-slip texture. It was windy, very windy, my hair was flying all over the place and I felt exposed in my small t-shirt and shorts. Not used to showing so much skin. I wasn't alone for long. Shortly after I sat down, a small group of guys dressed in weekend office worker attire, shorts most likely bought at Sears, maybe Mark's Work Warehouse, fleece vests, a Billabong T-shirt here or there, decent haircuts, all very safe. They had on those god awful teva sandals. They were really loud, each of them vying for position in the conversation. The loudest though, I could hear through the wind, even though it was buffeting my ears, making the situation more intense than necessary. He was outlining his favourite places to hang out in Vancouver, "Yeah, the Sandbar is good, lots of targets." Targets? I tried to figure out what he might be referring to, other than women, trying to give him the benefit of doubt. Then a young woman's napkin blew by his feet, grabbing it he said to her, "I don't know where the garbage is, but you can hang on to it until you find one." The woman thanked him, turned, and walked away, he smiled, and took a long look at her ass. I looked at his Teva's again. Target's are women. She was a target. Being single can seem so lonely.