While it's true that I haven't lived in very many places... and therefore my opportunities for comparison are slim... I feel like Fredericton has more than its fair share of peculiarities that make it an alternately fascinating, wonderful, frustrating and sometimes truly fist-clenchingly dumb town. Let's throw light on a few of them over the next few posts, shall we? OK.
King's Place Lines and Service.
The straightest route between home and work takes me through King's Place each morning. The businesses I frequent there most often are the Scotiabank (bank machine only), The Dollar Store, The Smoke Shop (or whatever it's called), Shopper's Drug Mart, The Key Cutting Place (or whatever it's called) and the Food Court. What all these places have in common are frequent long lines and nearly-as-frequent dubious service.
The Scotiabank: while this is not uniquely true of it's bank machine, there always seems to be someone at the front of the line that (a) is trying to do something very, very complex through their apparently dozens of accounts than (b) requires finding at least three banking cards, none of which they though to start looking for until they begin the process at the machine itself.
The Dollar Store: I have no real complaint about the staff here. Some of them seem quite funny and charming despite what must be a daily exercise in self-flagellation. But while many Dollar Stores are cramped this one is truly claustrophobic, with aisles so tight they cannot contain their often doublewide customer base. It was yesterday's peculiar moment that gave me the idea for taking a look at the duality of our fair city. I dropped in to buy a new chord for the store's phone handset... I was a little bit in a hurry it should be said... and so when I was wedged at the counter behind two native ladies in their late 50s perusing the Dollar Store nose rings... ... ... .... I mean... Dollar Store... NOSE RINGS!!! WTF!!!
The Smoke Shop (or whatever): I know this is, again, not uncommon elsewhere... but how many times have I been making steady progress towards my working day only to be derailed at this little hemorrhoid of a "convenience" store by a queue of pensioners either checking their losing 6/49 tickets or chosing $27 worth of scratch tickets while their cats go hungry at home?
Shopper's Drug Mart: No I don't have a fucking Optimum Card... why don't you just lower all your prices by 5% and call it even, ok?
The Key Cutting Place (or whatever): Generally is totally fine... innocuous... benign... but yesterday (the other half of my Dollar Store debacle/progress halter)... I needed three keys cut. Now the shop owner and all-the-time counterman was not in for the first and only time I've ever witnessed. Instead there was a gentleman I would often see hanging out at the counter (Fredericton... and especially King's Place... specializes in human fixtures... the omnipresent loafer that's graduated to malingerer.) But today he was my cutter of keys. He got 2 of the three more or less right (many of the duplicates the shop make seem to share the same flaw... a need to sing them fully into the lock then pull slightly back out while turning in order to unlock the door)... but the 3rd would not even go into the keyhole. I went back over and let him know... and he confessed that he was lacking in key cutting experience and that the owner would be back on Friday (this was Tuesday). I tried to think if there was another place downtown to get this done right away... but while I was coming up empty he decided to have another crack at it. I volunteered that the owner had made another copy of this same key a little while back and that he had to consult a guide since the original make was no longer available, but that there was an adequate substitute that had worked. I also mentioned that the key head was oval... that much was very very definite in my memory. Rather than confine himself to this information he cut two more keys, both with diamond shaped heads, and said confidently, "I'm sure one of these will do the job." Neither did.
The Food Court: I logically know that I shouldn't buy food at McDonald's. I know this. Still. I do. So I look at the break time death marches and counter incompetence as my punishment for going against my better judgement. McDonald's offers free refills on coffee and soft drinks and this often makes up 75% of the liners up... so the line usually progresses fairly quickly. Except of course when the Fredericton-style confusion sets in and certain persons-of-the-line decide to express their individualism by, for some reason, positioning themselves 8-10 feet abreast of the actual line. Now it's important to make the distinction here that they are not starting or standing in another imagined line... they are really somehow in the same line you are a part of, only... you know... really to the left or right of it. Puzzling. On the other side of the counter it always seems that the King's Place MacDonald's is the Australia to all the other MacDonalds's Victorian England. The long-time staff mostly are confined, Oompa Loompa-like, to a behind the scenes role of labor while the front of house staff is a rotating cast of young folk and seniors banished from the high profile Prospect or Regent Mall locations. They routinely run out of things like... you know... cups, napkins, burger wrappers. They will forget to make coffee, put fries or hash browns down. Generally the "fast" notion is downgraded to "moderately rapid" food. Serves me right, though.
So that covers the first small segment of the Fredericton Experience through my own private lens. Maybe next we'll cover how there are several dozen hair cutting places, massage therapists and tattoo shops but only two bookstores and one record store downtown. OK? ok.
