Post Apocalyptic Grocery Stores

We went to a movie last night. Nothing makes me feel more normal and grounded than just going to a damn movie. It's such a homey thing to do. So we went to the theatre at the Plaza Cote-Des-Neiges to see Hellboy 2. It's a strange little mall, unlike the behemoths we have in Calgary. It's more like the Stettler mall. Shops close at 6 there, except for the Zellers, Canadian Tire and Mango Tango, which are open til 7.

We went into the Mango Tango because we needed mustard (Have you ever tried to eat a sandwich without mustard? It's not even worth it). It looked like the grocery stores in a movie, after the apocalypse. Half the shelves were empty, the produce was a bit squiffy looking, we couldn't even find toilet paper. Their cereal section was 3 boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios, 1 of Frosted Flakes, and a huge box of Corn Flakes. I know that western culture enjoys its excesses, and that the local Safeway is overstocked with a lot of crap we don't even need, or that is not technically 'food', but this was depressing. It was like we'd wandered into Soviet Russia. We found mustard, one lonely bottle of French's Mustard, but we left it there. We were a little afraid of the zombie eyed people at the check outs. Who knows? Maybe by purchasing that mustard, we would have validated the reality of post apocalypse Montreal, and found ourselves surrounded by real zombies, not just retail zombies.

Hellboy 2 was very good, well worth the $7.95 admission - that's right, that's the regular ticket price here. AND, they gave us a $3 coupon for the concession. Calgary movie theatres don't know how to treat their patrons.
We came home and started watching Dexter, which I wasn't too keen on at first, but now that we've seen 3 episodes - I'm getting impatient for Gord to get up so we can watch some more.

And, it's happened. We're completely turned around. We see the sunrise everyday, because we haven't gone to bed yet. We sleep til noon, and just wander the city or relax at home. We said we were taking a month off to recuperate, and we're sticking to that. Calgary messes with your head, and it's all "Go, go, go! Buy, buy, buy! Drink, drink, drink!" Where Montreal, at least in our experience, is far more likely to say "Relax, slow down, what's your hurry?" We're listening to Montreal now.