“And we both know they won’t hire the attractive people like you and me.”

My morning was spent at the local cafe, Timothy’s, where I ordered my usual green tea. I did decide to spice things up later with a bit of chai, but that’s besides the point. I spent three hours in this cafe, mostly doodling. At one point an old woman came and sat next to me in a brilliant fake fur coat (I’ve worked long enough at a coat check to be able to distinguish the difference between real and fake fur), a matching black cap and black skirt. She started to talk to me. I get the impression she prefered talking to younger people. The old people in this cafe only talk about the news, crosswords and how things used to be. She started to talk to me about breathing, which for some might sound awkward . “You know, sometimes I just like a bit of oxygen, I breathe it you know.” It was such an strange thing to say, but I couldn’t laugh. This oddball of a woman then continued to talk about the joy of walking and breathing. After, she decided to talk about how she sang when she was younger. When I told her I’d been studying piano for 10 years, she seemed impressed, but not as impressed as she was with herself. We talked about singing. I told her my voice was alright, but it wasn’t my forte, nor was I a particularly confident singer. Her opinion was you can’t be good at piano and vocals, it doesn’t work that way. (Fair enough.) I told her how the conservatory of music is getting snobbier then ever, and she wasn’t surprised. They were like that when she was growing up too. They even tore down the original Conservatory building to put up some monstrosity that looks like a cheap hotel. We both knew about the Lake House; probably the last remaining original conservatory building, in Mississauga.  It backs onto Lake Ontario, in an area where you’re not so worried about sewage and where the lake smells like sand and trees, not filth. I liked watching her take a second to imagine she was there, when she was young. It is the kind of place where you’d like to spend hours just standing and breathing, or, maybe in her case, singing. We talked about the people who run the Conservatory. How they’ll do anything to knock you down because they don’t want you to be in their league. “And we both know they won’t hire attractive people like you and me.” I laughed at this comment. She did look like she might have been very attractive when she was younger. Her natural hair colour looks like it would have been black and she had blue eyes. She carried herself better then most super models. She was a sight to see. I was kind of sad when she had to go. She told me she arranges flowers at the old folks home, and she’d better not be late. I thought this was kind of surprising, considering she’s probably old enough to be in one. She’s a regular at Timothy’s apparently. I’d like to visit her again soon.  

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