Friday 23 April 2010

Chicken nuggets and gin


Last week I had to go to a place called Kallio. There's nothing actually wrong with Kallio, but as someone who is abnormally intolerant of drunks and hobos it is the kind of place where my arch enemy would live. As it goes, my arch enemy is norovirus, so if a virus can be an enemy and a place can be an arch enemy dwelling, then norovirus would live in Kallio.

Unfortunately two of my good friends live in Kallio and I like them more than I hate norovirus, so I got on a bus and set off to Kallio. I got off the bus and went to the local shop and then to my friend's. When I got there she realised she needed soy milk and I realised I'd forgotten everything I'd originally meant to buy because I was too busy trying to avoid the natives. I'd already seen a woman crying on a step and what I'm pretty sure was drugs changing hands but anyway. My friend lent me her key and I went to the shop.

I picked up all the stuff I needed and got in the queue thinking how great it would be to get back to my friend's place when a small woman came up to me and said:

Woman: Can I cut in front of you? I've got a good reason, I just can't be bothered to tell you.

At first I had a small argument in my brain with myself because I'm trying to learn to be assertive, and I thought that if I were to let this woman cut in front of me while I really want out of this shop, she should tell me her reason. Hopefully it would be a juicy reason, and it would justify me spending more time there than needed. I was just gathering the courage to say no, which happened to be hiding in my left big toe like a wuss, when I noticed that the woman was off her head on something of the intravenous kind.

Dear god, what kind of crazy drug mafia does this woman belong to? What will happen to me if I say no and she gets all her drug friends to chase me or something? What if she kidnaps me and sticks syringes all over me like a weird kind of heroin acupuncture? The fact that heroin addicts will probably do anything NOT to share their heroin escaped me at the time. I (at least mentally) jumped into the arms of the customer behind me:



from whence I squeaked "Yes". The customers behind me sighed at me. They are obviously impervious to the crazy drug mafia. I tried my best to look pissed off at the woman for taking up my valuable time so that the other customers would hate me less. I don't think it worked, but since I'd started already I decided to keep up the slightly annoyed face. And I did, until I heard a scream from behind me. I turned around to see a woman fighting one of the supermarket assistants. They were arguing about whether or not she'd shoplifted. Eventually the guy got her plastic bag off her and recovered a packet of chicken nuggets and a can of gin drink. She left, swearing about the current government.

I bet they didn't put that in the Kallio tv show.

1 comment:

  1. Shit... that is scary... reminds me of the time I was at the Vancouver bus station (which happens to be near East Hastings, North American's poorest and most drug-infested neighbourhood) at 5am being asked for spare change by a drugged up youngster.
    On edge? Oh yes.

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