By Jim Hagarty
2012
On Saturday afternoon I spent a few hours in a big mall in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, the one with the indoor skating rink. I was waiting on some family and friends who were wandering the place, so I just sat in a seating area along a main corridor and watched people walk by. I had forgotten how much I enjoy people watching and always have liked it. I can’t tell you what it is I find so interesting, but I just know it always makes me feel good. Teenagers walking in groups, most of them on their cellphones and smartphones, joshing each other. Parents with their kiddies, grandparents with their grandkiddies. Young men in wild attire I wish I had the nerve to wear. Young women who seem to have walked right off the pages of a fashion magazine. Young women who have no interest in fashion at all. Twenty-something businessmen with perfect grooming who look like they’d be riding home in BMW’s or Audis. Old folks moving slower than everyone else but part of the flow nonetheless. Some people marching with great urgency. Others meandering. Teenage boys looking embarrassed to be with their parents and trying to walk as detached from them as they could. Boys and girls in the blush of first love walking hand in hand and enjoying the thrill of romance up close.
I had brought a book with me and tried to read it but kept looking up to watch the parade. Then I started nodding off and at one point, almost fell on the floor. Worried about staying awake for the ride home as no alternate driver was along, I wandered into a newspaper shop and searched the coolers for an energy drink. “What are you after?” said the shopkeeper, a man in his early 50s perhaps. “A Monster,” I replied. “The green one?” “Yes,” I said. “Ah, a man after my own heart.” He got the can out of the cooler for me. “I hear these are not good for you,” I ventured as I pulled out a five dollar bill. “You know what’s bad for you?” asked the shopkeeper as he rang up the sale. “Everything!” He had downed two Monsters on his drive from Cornwall that morning and relied on them to stay awake. “They save my life.”
That made me feel great. I had permission to do something I shouldn’t do. I liked this guy. I went back to my seat, popped the top on my sinful witch’s brew and savoured every mind-alerting sip. By the time we were ready to leave the mall, I was bright as a daisy. I could have driven from Cambridge, Ontario, to Cambridge, Massachusetts – and back.
It was a great day. I had watched a whole bunch of people I’d never seen before and drank my first guilt-free Monster. And made it home alive.
