Mommy drinks but it's just to fight the plaque.

Parkdale is a place that will never, ever, cease to amaze me. It's many colourful characters; it's endless juxtapositions. There really is no place quite like it. And I am hunting for an apartment, which may result in me vehemently defending my new neighbourhood: Parkdale. 

Nothing is decided yet--any one got a nice, cheap, two bedroom in a house? So the Little E and I are in line at Parkdale's Price Chopper behind a wild-eyed woman and her pre-teen daughter. On the conveyer is four bottles of Listerine, two prepackaged donuts, and a bag of Smartfood popcorn. The woman is counting her change. . .problem! She calls her teenage daughter over to borrow some money (and I'm sure that she was using the word 'borrow' in the same way Susanna Moodie describes her Yankee neighbours 'borrowing' sugar in "Roughing it in the Bush"--they never intend to give it back). 

Finally the bleak truth becomes clear: in toto, there is not enough money for all the items. As a test, in your head, choose which item to forgo in order to make the receipt match the amount of change in your hand: 

1 bag of Smartfood Popcorn; 

2 pre-packaged donuts; 

4 bottles of Listerine. 

 Have you chose one? Was it the Smartfood? The Smartfood that your pre-teen daughter desperately wants? Or was it one of your precious bottles of Listerine, you dirty filthy crackwhore!?! Yes, rather than subtract some of mommy's good times over a bottle of smooth-sippin' Listerine, this class-act poster mom for the Parkdale elite chose to subtract Smartfood--arguably the most healthy thing on the conveyer (next to our lovely spread of fruits and vegetables . . . because E wouldn't let ME have any junk food!)--in the least democratic grocery decision that I've seen all year. 

Good grief. No one's breath is so awful, nor their gingivitis so advanced, that that quantity of Listerine is so urgently needed. I mean, she could have cut her Listerine with fruit juice to stretch the three bottles until the end of the week--the upside being family unity. . . and her not smelling so much like a whore whose just finished fellating a Dentist. "The Toothbrush Family" (a cartoon from my youth focused on improving brushing techniques) would have been entirely different with a tripped-out Mouthwash relative. Susie Sponge would have been bawling constantly at the hair-brained antics of Mouthwash Marty.