OH NO YOU DIDN"T?!

Target carts.
Originally uploaded by itsbriannabbyx3

Today I went into Toronto to bring my mother some food. She has been sequestered at home with the swine flu and the only thing that is going to dig her out of her predicament is rest, nourishing foods and the newest John Irving novel. Godspeed to recovery, Nana. Godspeed.

I decided to hit Whole Foods for her supplies because the parking is free, their line-ups aren't too long and there was $100 burning a hole in my wallet (How do people shop there daily without taking out a line of credit ? How?! It should be called Whole Wallet) After a quick shop, I headed towards my car to deliver the groceries.

That's when the problem began. I couldn't get the machine to validate my ticket. Every time I put the ticket into the machine, it would reject it. I must have tried 20 times and every time I attempted to validate the ticket it would be rejected outright. I was being shunned from the village.

Don't panic, Francis, I kept telling myself. Stay calm. There's a solution. I decided to take it up with headquarters, so I got into my car and headed towards the exit where I knew an actual person resided in a booth. They will solve my problem, I thought, as I threaded through the serpentine bowels of the parking garage. They deal with this all the time.

When I arrived at the booth upstairs, I parked my car to the side (not obstructing traffic) and headed into the glassed-in kiosk. There was a woman in there seated at a desk who was - I swear on a stack! - flossing her teeth. In public. At her place of work. Flossing.

I was stunned, intraweb. Stunned.

"Excuse me," I said slightly bewildered, "I hate to interrupt but I'm having a problem with the parking machine and I was wondering...."

"Hold on!" she said, spit flying everywhere. "I'm in the middle of something."

"I see that, " I replied. "So am I! I'm trying to get food to my mother who has a serious illness." Not prevent tooth decay, which is a serious issue too, no doubt, but not entirely in the same category as an international pandemic. "Do you think that you can help me get this ticket validated so that I can be on my way?" It was so hard not to add, "Bee-atch" there at the end, you have no idea.

She looked at me like I was insane, grabbed my ticket and sighed.

"You don't have to pay," she said. "You got validated inside." She pointed at my ticket with her floss hand (Argh!) "Put it through the machine."

Then she pointed to a TV screen on the desk.

"Yeah, I was watching you try to put it in machine. You were pretty frustrated, huh?"

What to say? What to say? Silence.

"You enjoy your day, " I replied.

She nodded at me. "You, too," and then resumed flossing her teeth.