2004-04-01 - 10:07 p.m.
A couple of blocks away from where I work there used to be a book store called Reader's Den, which I was quite fond of. It is, of course, long vanished, even before two mega-bookstore/cafes opened up within a few blocks of it - it's been something like seven years since it was there. But one day this week I emerged from work to find a pristine Reader's Den bookmark lying on the sidewalk at my feet. Ghost boomark! A message from the dear departed days when not everything was a mega-franchise.
Conversation on the streetcar this week:
Woman A: Hey, there's that restaurant Hello Toast - have you ever been there?
Woman B: No, but they had this horrible ad in Now Magazine for a while. It said "Hello Toast is pleased to serve homosexuals - dot dot dot - Because you keep ordering them!"
Woman A: Wow, what do you think that means?
Woman B: I don't know... I was wondering, was it, like, some sort of thing to do with when there was the SARS backlash, and all the tourists cancelled, but the big gay parade still happened here?
Woman A: Maybe... or maybe they actually have a menu item that's called the homosexual.
I wonder if it would have been worth it to try and explain that it was a joke, and that Hello Toast is actually a gay-owned business...
