Home and the Homeless

I worked like crazy all weekend and now I'm back in Toronto.

I left my car at my Dad's and took the train today. I was hungry as we zipped along and I decided to get a danish when the little cart went by. I bought it and then discovered that it was one of those full of preservatives, prepackaged, nasty-ass ones. It had 470 calories, 33 grams of sugar, 18 grams of fat including 6 grams of trans fat, 490 mg of sodium, and was gross-looking. I didn't eat it, but rather than throw it away, I kept it. I wanted to give it to a homeless person.

Now I'm not sure why a homeless person would want to eat that crap, but I've seen guys pick cigarette butts up off the ground and light them up and so I thought that even though this was my garbage, they might actually want it. Maybe it's naive and inconsiderate of me to think so, but the alternative was throwing it into the garbage. At least if I gave it away, they could either feel insulted, or they could be thankful. They could decide whether to eat it or throw it away. I assume that they would read the label and decide for themselves if it was a healthy/necessary choice. It didn't matter to me since there was no way I was going to put that crap in my body.

Toronto must have solved its homeless problem over the weekend because I walked from Union station, and didn't see one homeless person. I was looking hard, too. I couldn't find anyone. I looked on both sides of the street, and I walked past all the usual hangouts on Queen street.

So I walked all the way home carrying this little cellophane packet of chemicals. I really did try to give it away, but I decided that it was bad form to go up to dirty, scruffy looking people and ask them if they were homeless. The danish now sits in my apartment, and will soon have a date with the compost bin, though I expect that there is a very small portion, if any, that will decompose.