That Bitch Got Me Again

On several occasions I have used the plight of our fair cities homeless population as blog fodder. I’m not certain if this makes me a bad person or not, because you can never really know the circumstances of a person’s situation until you talk to them. And I’m rarely in the business of chatting up anyone on the street, much less a homeless man. So I think it might make me a bad person, but really it’s so easy, how often do you see homeless people doing something crazy that you could write 1,000 hilarious words about? It happens to me constantly. Here’s an example: last night I was eating outside at Panera with Leslie, on the corner was a homeless man harassing anyone who walked by. He was really getting in peoples faces, but it was totally working because some guy gave him his leftover PF Chang’s to get him to leave his girlfriend alone. Maybe it’s just me but I would have to be in some real duress to give someone my Chang’s spicy chicken, so I guess his tactics were effective. As he went to hassle someone new he dropped his change cup spilling quarters and nickels everywhere along the sidewalk. The ensuing scramble was one of the saddest things I think I’ve ever seen. The man was pretty frantic to pick up his change and kept trying to get people to stop and help him. I being a bad person found a little amusement out of it though, because the guy was clearly jacked up on some foreign substance. Every time he bent down to pick up a coin he’d wobble and have to brace himself before falling over. Eventually he devised a system where he would spread his legs really wide, then bend over and gather change. Sort of like a tripod, the wider the base the more stable. Ultimately, he recouped his losses and was on his way to enjoy some leftover lettuce wraps and live happily ever after.

The point is normally I would’ve made fun of this guy having no idea whether he deserved it or not. Now though I think karma has jumped up to bite me. You see, as of this week I will be joining the ranks of the homeless I so mercilessly belittle. My lease is up on Sunday, my roommate is moving in with her boyfriend and I am left without a place of my own. Well not really, I’m moving in with a friend who recently bought a house but the room won’t be available for another couple of weeks. So I’m out on the streets. Well not really that either, fortunately I have neither a drug or alcohol problem that has alienated everyone in my life who I could ask for help. I have plenty of friends and a wonderful girlfriend who will keep me from being a total vagrant until I can move in to the new place. But still, I’ll be a nomad living out of a bag for two or the weeks. It’s pretty annoying and it’s definitely my karmic payback for using the homeless for comedic gain. Plus what if this is where it all starts? Maybe this is the beginning of a slippery slope. It starts with me staying in a different house every few days. Then someone says, “Hey why don’t you try some of this crack?” And I’m all, “Sure what’s the worst that can happen?” Then bam, I’m a homeless guy begging for change and getting made fun of by some loser with a blog. That would suck, but at least I’d get some free PF Chang’s every once in a while.