Stymied at the Liquor Store

My sister is officially in charge of fundraising in front of liquor stores. That may sound like a small designation, but it's one that will make all dealings going forward exceptionally easier for me anyways. When Stacie and I went to the Collingwood liquor store to raise money for our Arthritis run a couple of weeks ago, she basically walked into the store, asked the manager if we could come back on the weekend and it was all good after that. Contrasted to my attempt to organize the same kind of event at the Commercial Drive branch, where I had to talk to the store manager 3 times, someone at BCL HQ, then email a letter to the area manager about who we were and what we were up to, and finally getting the go-ahead late Friday afternoon.

What all that work got us was a space in front of the liquor store in the blazing sun. To the north of us was a woman with a hat out asking for spare change and another woman trying to sell a bus pass for 50 bucks. To the south was another person with a hat and a spare change sign, a guy playing a guitar (the same song over and over again for about half an hour) and another guy trying to sell a garish painting of a pot leaf on a red background. And that's just what we could see. To say that people were weary of being asked for money by the time we got to us is an understatement. Still we were doing ok until the bagpiper showed up.

Bagpipes! The world's loudest instrument, designed to be heard from miles away on the Scottish highlands now being played at full force about 4 feet away from us. I tried to explain to the busker that we had set this up a week ago with the liquor store manager and we were planning to be there for a couple of hours, with no possible way of asking people for donations when bagpipes were being played, but he seemed determined to play them anyways and tried to offer to "buy our spot" from us. Um, thanks. Maybe had I mentioned how much money we needed to raise he would have backed down, but as it was, we packed up our posters and went to Champlain Heights instead - this being my sister's idea and reason #2 why she is in charge of liquor stores.

It's a quiet branch and closes early on Saturdays, but still almost everyone that came in gave us something and those that didn't were so nice about it that we didn't even care. So the day was definitely salvaged, even though we had started out with higher hopes than we accomplished.

And the bagpiper? I saw him twice again today, once on Granville Street and then again way down Broadway in Kits. Judging by how much coin he made in the time we were beside him, I think he's got a pretty good gig going, and I must say that he's a pretty decent player as well, even though I did want to kick him in the shins. The first time in my life that I've hated the sound of bagpipes. Oh well.