Tim Hortons References: The Cup Overflows!

Enjoy a little book tour via a collection of Tim Hortons references. 

 

I took this photo exactly one year ago, while in Toronto for Thanksgiving.
(Can you spot the Tim Hortons?)

       Our food stores can't be beat. It's true that the Bay closed down with its really neat Maxi, but in Chicoutimi we have at least two Metros, a couple of Intermarches, a big IGA, a big Loblaws, a Maxi, a Super C. The Corneau Cantin too, but they're expensive and are always on the verge of going bankrupt. Still, when you get your Publisac at the beginning of the week, you can find good bargains. There's also Tanguay, which isn't bad, a huge Gagnon Freres with an escalator, the Bureau en Gros, an Omer DeSerres, all the dealerships (except for luxury cars), three Tim Hortons, soon to be four, a super Pacini, where you can make your own toast, a Casa Grecque with a salad bar, a Scores with a nice salad bar too, a great new Jean Coutu across from the other Jean Coutu, but twice the size; in fact we're up there with just about anybody, even people in Quebec City. A great Winners, a Pennington, an H&M that's coming soon. (p 20-21)

        I view the whole scene from the roof of Tim Hortons, onto which I have climbed. The daring of my friend by default has inspired me. It will soon be my turn to play. I climb down to pedal to the end of the world. To watch the world burn, I put on my helmet. (p 181)

-from You Will Love What You Have Killed by Kevin Lambert, translated by Donald Winkler

--------------------

        She knew she was being vain, but she was excited for her old university friends to see her updated look. Seeing Sunil again, however, might make for a complicated reunion. The last time she had been alone with him was a few years ago, during a late-night study session at a Tim Hortons. 
[...]
        "Hello, Serena, don't you look well," Karen said. She was rosy cheeked and plump, and Serena couldn't help but notice the giant diamond she waved around on her left hand. An apple scent wafted from her. "Quite a small dress you have on."
        "She can rock it though, huh?" Kal grinned as he leaned over to kiss Serena's cheek. "If it isn't Miss 'One Hundred and One Questions' herself! God, I remember how much you bugged me when I asked you to join the University Indian Association years ago. Serena was all, 'What counts as an Indian?' By the time graduation came around in 2001, she was standing with all us Indians for pictures. I hope you know the answer to your question now, Serena. Good to see you."
        Serena blushed, remembering her younger self, immersed in women's studies, desperate to find a place to fit in. How could she even have questioned who counted as Indian? The answer met her in the mirror when she stared at herself every day. She smiled at the group. Sunil was the only one who didn't meet her gaze.
        "How are you, Sunil?" she found herself asking. For a brief moment, it was as if Kal and Karen had vanished. Only she and Sunil were sitting at a table covered with textbooks and Timbits. She wondered what would have happened if she had given Sunil a chance to be her boyfriend -- if she had looked past the fact that he was a man immobilized by his shyness and allowed him to take her on a proper date. Would she be married with children by now? Would she be living in a house somewhere in the suburbs? (p 135-137)

- from The Desirable Sister by Taslim Burkowicz

--------------------

        The next day he sent me Sup again and told me he was helping organize a show to buy the singer dental implants. We chatted for weeks: I told him about studying for my first midterms and he told me about working at Tim Hortons. When I found out I was going to be playing the part of the Cheshire Cat in the school production of Alice in Wonderland, he wrote, They should have made you Alice.
        I told him I wanted to be the Cheshire Cat, it was a more interesting role. I fantasized about inviting him to see me slinking around the stage in my black turtleneck and leggings with whiskers painted on my face.
        Sometimes he'd say, Too bad you're so young, and I'd say Why? and he'd say Never mind. (p 54)

        Eventually Holly got a text from a guy who said his ex-girlfriend had the dogs. She met him in a Tim Hortons and they drove together to the building where his ex-girlfriend lived.
        "Were you scared?"
        "No, that's why I met him at the Tim Hortons first, to make sure he wasn't," she paused, "scary, I guess."
        "What about when you got in the car?"
        "I trusted him, after talking at Tim Hortons," she said. "You just have to listen to your gut in those types of situations." (p 62)

-from All I Ask by Eva Crocker

--------------------------
  

      The average adult female should consume only 6 teaspoons (25 grams) of added sugars a day. The average adult male should consume only 9 teaspoons (38 grams) of added sugars a day. [...]
        North Americans eat 16 to 21 teaspoons of added sugar every day. If it's hard to wrap your head around that number [...] consider the iconic Iced Capp at Tim Hortons. A large Iced Capp contains 15 teaspoons of sugar. According to the new guidelines, that's a little more than twice the recommended daily amount for a woman.

-from Peace, Love and Fibre: Over 100 Fibre-Rich Recipes for the Whole Family by Mairlyn Smith

---------------------

        "You look like you could use a cup of coffee," he says. "Don't worry about your friend, okay? Sandra's going to take good care of her. Look, see the Timmy's right down the hall, by the elevator?" He points to a sign and digs in his pocket. "let me get you some cash."
        Shannon shrugs his hand off her elbow and he steps off. "Do I look like I need your money?"
        The girl behind the Tim Hortons counter wears an immaculate French braid and no makeup. Her uniform is boxy and nothing about her says sex, only work. Everything screams temporary foreign worker. Probably still fresh off the boat.
        "Black," Shannon snaps. "No sugar."
        "Yes, ma'am, one minute, one minute." The worker talks weird, her mispronounced words pitched in apology. She offers a quick smile but drops it when she sees Shannon's face. It's another two minutes before she figures out the till and takes the change Shannon's held out the whole time.
        Shannon taps her foot. She doesn't have time for this shit. She's got to get to the airport, pay the rent, the damage deposit. She could have been there and back twice by now.
        "Hello? I said black." The girl flinches, spilling the cream she's poured into Shannon's coffee. Shannon turns to the man in line behind her. "Think anyone here speaks English?" (p 89)

        The bush outside the Fort McMurray conference centre had acorns on the ends of its branches that grew straight up like it was giving the world a gazillion middle fingers. Eff you, idling semi truck! Eff you, Tim Hortons drive-thru next door! Eff you, minivan mom with oversized sunglasses! You look like a stupid bug!
        Mom keeps talking, but Zoe pretends she can't hear. (p 99)

        It doesn't seem right, doing all that work and letting someone else take the credit. Like when the twins won Most valuable Players at the World juniors last year and thanked Dave on camera for coaching the Timbits team they played on as little kids, but actually it was Lacey who had coached four of the six weeks because Dave was stuck in camp all season. (p 150)

        Glass in one hand and bottle in the other, Karen returns to the ladies. She walks the circle made around the psychic's wobbly little table, refilling glasses. The group's token non-executive wife (only invited because the executive husbands wanted her field-operator husband to bring their three National Hockey League sons to their annual golfing retreat) lifts a giant Tim Hortons paper cup and beams a smile just as warm and homey as the coffee.
        "I've got my double-double, but thanks, Karen." The woman tilts her head to the side, but her 1990s feathered bangs don't move an inch.
        What was that old joke? The bigger the hair, the closer to God?
        Karen pats her shoulder. She's always had a soft spot for women like Lacey, round and thick and a little boring. Sincere people make the nicest company, their happy-go-luckiness a salve for the jaded-but-glamourous. (p 170-171)

-from Always Brave, Sometimes Kind by Katie Bickell

--------------------

I'm pleased that other readers occasionally send me Tim Hortons sightings:

        Somewhere in rural Quebec we stop at a Tim Hortons for a bathroom break. There's a payphone out front and I have two prepaid phone cards in my pocket from Strane with instructions to call if I get lonely.

-from My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
with thanks to @la_rose_noire of Litsy

---------------------------

        I went for a run this morning in my old gym shorts, with a Tim Hortons gift card (a parting gift from the parents; they believe in well-caffeinated students) tucked inside my hoodie. I ran for half an hour, stopped for coffee, then took my time walking home. (p 43)

-from Nice Try, Jane Sinner by Lianne Oelke
with thanks to @LauraBeth of Litsy

For more Tim Hortons excerpts, click here.