tim.

on a dark, foggy, rainy, unwelcoming day staying home was the obvious choice, get some writing done. so that was that. i was happy with the decision, happy to stay in my pyjama-type stuff, happy to remain dry and cozy. a half-hour later, however, i was in my trusty old truck trundling off to town.

i headed for chelsea. that was far enough, i reasoned, on a day like that. anyway, chelsea is cool. chelsea is where beautiful people go. but, for some reason i didn't stop there. i did steer the truck off the highway onto scott road. i even geared down, slowed as i approached the parking lot. but then i slid right on by 'biscotti'. i asked myself why(?) why(?) i turned onto old chelsea and bumped along the yet unpaved gravel road, but bounced right on past 'le saisons.' i asked myself why(?) why(?) my right foot seemed to have taken over. i was no longer driving. i was driven. i found myself crossing over the alonso-wright bridge, circling 'round and shooting straight into the 'tim hortons' lot. maybe i'm just not cool. i know i'm not beautiful. but, sometimes i just gotta go to tim's.

there are times when nothing will do but that i go for a tim hortons coffee. i'm not proud of it and, honestly, i don't even particularly like the coffee. it has no punch, no soul, and the donuts will kill ya softly. still, there's something terribly soothing about those places, like macaroni and cheese. it's ok to not be ok. it's ok to look like you've seen better days. you can be missing a few teeth, to dress like you've just come off an oil rig. while people elsewhere may be smack in the middle of being wonderful, at tim's people look over when you enter with smiles that say: 'yeah, bud, it's ok.'

before the tim hortons was built in wakefield my buddy and i staged a mock sit-in in front of the huge 'tim hortons opening in spring' sign. we held up molos coffee cups and took photos. those were the days when molos cared. we thought it was hilarious because of all the hubbub swirling 'round the franchise threatening to open here. nobody paid much attention to our shenanigans, the inevitable happened and life went on.

soon after, it dawned on me that tim's is at least one place open later than 6:00 that isn't boozy. it's open all the time, in wakefield. who knew? i'm there right now and it's 4:57 a.m., now 4:59... the drive-through is already busy. the people coming in have a look about them as if to say: "hey, i work friggin hard with seriously messed-up hours while barely making ends meet. i have no friggin dental plan, my kid needs skates and my wife needs some company. if i wanna extra large double friggin double and a honey friggin crawler i damn well gonna have one."