Chinatown n. an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people

One of the worst situations a commuter can find herself in is the rush hour ride home with an armload of groceries. Can you empathize? A bag containing a magazine and a can of Pringles doesn’t count. I’m talking about a mother load of canned goods, dense heads of cabbage and animal carcasses weighing down your limbs. When the grocery bags are so heavy that they are cutting off circulation to your fingers and leaving deep creases on your hands and wrists you know you've bought too much. When your arms are shaking and your weak, untoned muscles struggle to hold the weight and there is nary a seat in sight, this is the seventh circle of hell.

In terms of public transit etiquette, I equate a successful shopper with a pregnant woman, a parent with a small, unsteady child or an elderly person who cannot count on their arthritic knees to serve them well during a particularly swiveling or bumpy ride. I always give up my seat to a shopper because their situation dictates that a seat is sorely needed. For how do you hold on, when your hands are full? Easy! Take a seat and rest your load. Perhaps I am the only person in Toronto to do this, I don’t know.

I made the brave/ stupid decision to take a shopping excursion to Chinatown using the Spadina streetcar last Saturday morning. I also made the grave error of only bringing 2 cloth bags and no plaid, fabric-covered granny cart with me (as so many of my fellow commuters equipped themselves with last weekend). I left the grocery cart at home because I feel its rightful place is when I walk to St. Lawrence Market. It belongs rolling down the sidewalk, not taking up human space on a public transport vehicle. I guess I should take this opportunity to mention my severe aversion to anyone who brings anything onto the subway, bus or streetcar that takes up commuter space; read: bicycles, strollers/prams/carriages, dogs, grocery carts, red wagons (of the Radio Flyer variety especially), skateboards, skis, giant hockey bags, moving boxes, scooters, Vespas, unicycles, donkeys, industrial espresso machines). I also despise children who wear Heely shoes (those sneakers with a wheel in the heel), but that’s not really related to subway travel more in terms of inside the supermarket, I digress.

Anyway I bought a Chinese buffet’s worth of produce, meat and sauces and then determined that my haul was too heavy to walk back home with so I waited for the streetcar with the 9000 fellow Spadina shoppers. My bags were full of giant bok choy, knobs of galangal and bottles of fish and oyster sauces and hoisin. My hands were turning a similar purple to the colour of the thai basil Peking out of my bag. As the streetcar approached, I breathed a sigh of relief! At last! An empty car where I could rest my bags down and revive my numb limbs! There was much commotion and a foreign cacophany of “Diu!!!”, “Hai!!!”, “Gao!”, “Chat!!!”, “Lan!!!” as the driver flipped his sign to OUT OF SERVICE and glided by.