June 23, 2009

Day Two: Liquor Store? I Hardly Know Her Store!

Well, it’s day 2 in the great city strike of 2009. I haven’t been to Chinatown (this isn’t racist, my mom’s Chinese) or any city parks yet, so I haven’t quite noticed trash on the streets. In the thirty degree heat, I smelled pretty bad today, but the air stench remains negligible.

Someone (the city?) has taken the mature step of putting a thick saran wrap over garbage cans with a sign saying “Not in Service”—this has the same affect of putting a “No Girls Allowed” sign on your treehouse: you’re only going to get MORE girls—and people have brilliantly poked a hole through the saran wrap and jammed garbage in anyway. Screw you talking, garbage can! Don’t tell me what to do!

The more exciting news of the day was the rush on liquor at the LCBO (which is set to strike as of midnight tonight). As I love the combination of booze and panic, I thought I would join my fellow Torontonians and check out the liquor store.

Have you ever been dumb enough to buy your booze on New Year's Eve? I have. This was times 10! The competition for bottles was fierce! Elbows were thrown...bodies were bruised. If you've seen Jingle All the Way, it's like the scene where Sinbad and Schwarzenegger fight over a Turbo-Man Action figure for their sons on Christmas Eve.

I haven’t seen a gin shelf this ravaged since I visited my Grandma Todd (love you, Grandma!)
*Note how no one seems interested in the Russian Prince Vodka.

Though I’m pretty sure the booze strike will end before the garbage strike (we have our priorities) and there will be no shortage of getting a buzz-on (beer stores and crappy Ontario wine stores are still open), it was fun to look at all the empty shelves and see everyone filling baskets, sure that sometime soon, they will NEED peach schnapps.

Ah, Toronto. You’re a mess. If this was an episode of Intervention, we’d be bringing in Jeff Van Vonderen to take you on a plane down to New Beginnings in Miami.

And speaking of Intervention, here is my 2009 panic haul.
p.s. Don’t Intervene on me. I got caught up in the frenzy.

Tomorrow's Day 3. And you know what happens on the third date?

7 comments:

ZOE WHITTALL said...

HA hA! I love a good "if you've seen Jingle All the Way" reference. Funny.

MOGO Blogger said...

I don't think you have nearly enough Spiced Rum...What would the Captain do? Clearly he would buy a barrel.

Paul Vermeersch said...

Nice haul, but I don't think you've consumed that much spirit in all the time I've known you....

David Brock said...

You're right, Paul. But now I have a big boy liquor shelf for classy guests who don't want to drink from tall cans of Dab.

Elisabeth de Mariaffi said...

Here's my favourite quote on the strike panic so far (from today's Globe): Sales Monday soared to $17-million - more than twice the $7-million average a June day would bring in...
"Obviously some people decided they wanted to maybe buy ahead just to be safe."

Yeah. Just a few people thought they would maybe buy a bottle or two extra. Just in case.

Leigh said...

my favorite was that about half the people in liquor stores looked panicked, while the other half looked guilty. ha.

AJB said...

Doobie ... What I would like to know is if you were one of the panicked or the guilty.