I was down at BMV at Yonge and Edward Sts. today around half past noon, there to whittle away the last half hour of my lunchtime.

I will say now that I realistically do not need any more books. And really, I've become so frugal that even BMV's prices are too much for me, but the air-conditioning was irresistible after the sunny, baking street. I also wanted to check up on whether one of the clerks had finally sensibly trimmed back his awful facial hair. (He had not.)

I was idling in front of the plays and poetry when a rather burly man -- looking as though he'd be more comfortable in a t-shirt and shorts on a patio rather than white polo sports shirt and clean faded jeans in a jazz-filled bookstore -- walked by me and called out to his pal in a voice touched with the smallest edge of panic, "Do they have a romance section?"

His friend muttered under his breath and turned slightly away, engrossed in a manly mystery thriller.

"They must have a romance section, right? Where is it?"

I, in all honesty, could only keep myself from laughing out loud by sniggering; it was the lesser and kinder and possibly safer -- seeing as I was shorter, lighter, and weaker -- of two evils. Luckily, I was edging away at that point in anticipation of my mirth and I don't think anyone heard or saw. But it was all too irresistibly funny and cute. 

Just a warning to the fellas: I'm gonna talk womanly talk now, so you can scamper if you like.

Last week, I needed a change of my "feminine napkin." Ain't that a cute term? I'm surprised they didn't go with "maidenly serviettes."

So I skipped off to the ladies' room to change a quarter into such a sanitary device.

They were out.

Feeling this was no biggie -- since I, in all honesty, had never met a pad dispensing machine that actually did so -- I went to the 10th floor, from where I was on the 4th. I made the journey because I knew the 10th to be almost completely deserted, and this in turn must mean a decent supply.

No luck. The damn machine didn't even have an "empty" sign on it so it ate two quarters.

I went to the 2nd. The single bathrooms had lock keypads on them. By this point angry and uncomfortable, I stalked down to the 3rd. I near threw a superfluous chair out of the way and slammed in a quarter. Success!

Best of all, the brand is Maxishield, sounding like something Captain Picard might order against the Romulans, and comes in the strangest box. Made of what feels like stiff recycled paper, it has what looks like a 60s gymnast in Bruce Lee's leotard. Her arms are thrown open because apparently the pad has liberated her from 1950s domestic oppression and inequality. Now she has the whole world ahead of her -- but remember to take extra pads! Click to receive the maximum protection.
  

Note to self: A family of five produces a fuckload of laundry. Also, hanging up a fuckload of laundry produced by a family of five is a significant strain on upper arm muscles. In future, attempt to refrain.

Also note to self: Never, ever, force a bra caught in a washer. It will snap forward and go straight for the eyes or miscellaeneous sensitive areas that have carelessly left exposed during a routine domestic task. Ordinary corrective glasses do nothing.

A problem.

A couple of days ago, before I left work to go home, I stopped in the ladies' room. After washing my hands, I glanced in the mirror and noticed something odd. I gave a pull to my shirt -- thick, durable cotton -- just to make sure.

Yep. My nipples were giving me a standing salute.

I stood there for a moment, in a mix of slight panic and puzzlement, hoping no one came in while I was staring at my breasts. This looked very strange. I tried to figure out what may have triggered this. I hadn't given them any physical stimulation -- which would have looked a bit strange while I sat at my desk -- felt any sort of sexual arousal -- difficult in my stale, beige cubicle while sorting through old police investigations -- or been subjected to excessively chilly temperatures. Maybe it's a talent -- a simple thought of "Up!" is all I need.

As a good consumer on her weekend from work, I spent the afternoon on a shopping jaunt with my mother. We went into a Disney store to pick up half-off clothing for my little brother.

As I waited in line to pay for an armful of glow-in-the-dark Buzz Lightyear t-shirts, I became acutely aware of the chaos around me.

Far ahead of me, two clerks resignedly calculated to themselves that lunch was not forthcoming for the next three hours. In front of me, two frazzled, long-faced parents clutched two kitchsy Mickey and Minnie in Hawaii stuffed dolls as they murmured what a happy child their offspring was -- nowhere to be seen. Just to the right of me, a woman stared straight ahead as the girl over her shoulder bawled and screamed for the Princess Aurora doll just out of her reach. A moment later, the woman flung all the fluttery Aladdin pajamas from her stroller onto a nearby rack and rollered her stroller and her brood, out. A trio of teenagers sauntered through the throng, exclaiming how this was their favourite store.

How I prayed, to whatever gods there are.

As I tried to catch the eye of my mother, who was browsing listlessly, I realized how the place made me feel almost physically ill. I was surrounded, everywhere, by people mindlessly consuming and consuming. Three thousand dollar art prints. Plastic beeping toy cellphones. Whirly things that clacked, spun, and lit up. My eyes washed over the sea of plastic and polyester. Nothing here was original, beautiful, or meaningful, to anyone here or anywhere, and nor would it ever be. It was a complete, utter waste of humanity, supremely represented in this one small space.

Here they were. And here was I.

I explained all of this to my mother as we left the store. At the word "ill", she asked whether it was the noise, the air, or the space, only able to interpret my disgust as something solely physical. In my frustrated second attempt, she interrupted me to comment that she needed to attend to the ladies' room and asked me to take her coat and bags for her.

I, suddenly overcome with a new wave of fatigue, took them.

My acquaintance -- the one who insisted I give Chicago another try after a first disappointed viewing -- and I have a dispute. I think sultry, vivacious Catherine is the bonafide sexpot of the flick. He counters with scrawny, squinty-eyed Renée. 

Rouged knees, or skinny legs? I turn to the masses, should they stop by ...

A pleasure of life is to let go in an apparently deserted hallway several hot, noxious, lingering farts, from between two tightly pressed together buttocks ...

A pleasure, so simply quashed by a single person --  usually your professional superior or whom you find deathly attractive, or both -- popping up from behind a door and coming in your direction.

As the fog hits them, they flinch, see you frozen like a deer in the headlights, know the windy culprit; they try to hold their breath while looking nonjudgemental. Throwing them a nod of horrified acknowledgement, you spin around on your heel and walk so fast your legs cramp, because you foolishly think you can outrun humiliation.

I have a 7-kilometre, or half an hour, commute every weekday to work, from the Leslie stop to the Queen subway station. Sometimes the entertainment is there -- like the man reprimanding his friend about his ignorance of corn foods ("You've NEVER had a corndog? Corn beef? What about cornbread? Corn muffin?" "Well, I've had a corn muffin ... the time you gave me one ...").

But mostly I have to create my own entertainment.

Today, I was inspired by a recent article in a local paper, which discussed advances in cycling fashion. It spoke about shirts, trousers, shoes, and even garments regarding more sensitive lower areas of the human anatomy, but not a single mention about protective headgear.

(I wrote an extravagantly worded and what I thought to be wry letter to the editor, but it was not published.)

With this in mind, I counted cyclists, and noted whether they wore helmets or not. Their fashion choices were not taken into account, although I will comment that by and far many were all rather poorly dressed.

Within half an hour, counting just those on the north side of Queen St. East, I managed to tally 36 cyclists. Here's the breakdown:

• 30 people did not wear helmets, or about 83%.
• Despite a Toronto bylaw requiring those under 16 years of age to wear helmets, nine of those 30 were definitely minors and two of them were even sharing a bike meant for one.
• Three more people were walking their bikes, and they were neither wearing or carrying a helmet.
• Three people were rollerblading, and one was wearing a helmet, or about 33%.

As I walked thoughtfully home, I concluded that (1) people were idiots, (2) but their brains were clearly deficient anyway and didn't need preservation, and (3) natural selection was still churning away as strong as ever.