Cafeteria personnel are troubled by recent complaints as regards the tapioca pudding. It seems the recipe has been handed down, with justifiable pride, through three generations of our second chief cook's family. There've been problems, since rectified, with inferior ingredients once or twice, but can't we pull together on this one folks? At utmost need, if that's your honest preference, simply and silently choose another item from among our available dessert selections. Nobody can feel offended by that. Tapioca fanciers can exercise their right of choice freely too, and confidently now that supply lines to superior ingredients have been reliably, and in perpetuity, assured.

(A spotlight  opens on a woman at a bus shelter with two rows of muffin trays in front of her.)

Fifteen consecutive buses marked 'Out of Service' have sped by my stop. No matter--meantime I've discovered a method of making muffins from scratch right here in the shelter, which has led to a lively trade with people passing by or waiting. Now one's arrived that's actually taking on passengers--you'd almost think that's what buses are designed for, rather than whizzing by empty as is their recent wont. Shall I jump aboard and ride downtown? I think not. In the first place it'll be overcrowded and still not fit a fraction of the people waiting. I'm not a pushy person so I'll be forced to the rear. In the second place I've got my own line of customers to clear, and two fresh batches baking, plus accumulated stock, I'd have to abandon. These represent an investment of capital and labour both--for once not working at cross purposes to each other. You can see muffins in the hands of almost everybody pushing into available space from this spot--gives me a warm glow. I hope they're careful about the crumbs. Best strike while the iron's hot--who knows how long before some highminded city clerk drives up in a green official car

(Out of spot, wheels screech to a halt, a car horn blasts 'ayuga'.)

Regulations are ambiguous in many areas, but in this case they're strikingly clear--as you'd expect in the matter of turning a transit shelter into a cooking facility. Sometimes we turn a blind eye if they're used as temporary housing. Neighbourhood action is likeliest to accomplish our work there.

First we must ascertain whether you are a first offender. (Flitting of pages.) Names, names, names.

In the last analysis who really knows what the limit is for mixed use of a shelter such as this one?

It'll do you no good to flaunt the law. You don't have a Rosedale or Forest Hill address.

In the last month alone, this one's been a vendor on glossy oversized paper for: audio video equipment, high priced stylin' vodka, and tickets in a range of local, provincial and federal lotteries.

None of them there on the spot, peddling their wares. Even cooking them up in this instance.

More pertinently, all recognized businesses of a fixed address, even several, which daily pay property, payroll and income taxes.

Daily? Can't be as bad as that. Anyway the lottery's a tax itself.

One that pays real dividends in very rare cases. Supports noble endeavours in more than one field. You'd be better off investing there than in this sort of gypsy fly-by-night operation--are proper rules of hygiene even being observed?

See any dirt under there? Even any cakey crumbs of muffin? I think not! But will all such arguments prove to no avail? Maybe luck's on my side--I'll run into an inspector with a sense of humour, taste for muffins or both.

No such luck. Humour's more dangerous than liquor during duty hours, and tapioca's more our tastebuds' speed.

With better luck I'll remain unvisited 'til six.

Can't be everywhere. (Roar and screech of tires.)