Monday, August 6, 2007

Some People...

OK, I will probably not post this often in the future, but talking about the Iceman got me to thinking about another bum that annoyed me greatly:

Long before we were married, my wife and I, both pulling down some mad cashage from da BK (I made 6 bux an hour and thought I could live on that forever....ah those were the times) and could finally afford our first apartment together. Wouldn't you know it, a combined 1000 a month does not net a lot of housing in Kansas City or anywhere. Our choices consisted of: crappy apartments by the highway in the ghetto or sleeping in my car. Since the stupid windows in my car would not roll up we opted for the apartment, though in retrospect we should have slept in the car.

Of the MANY issues with the apartment (the Somalian guys downstairs would regularly offer to trade their sister for my girlfriend, but not let me look at her face first (of course I would never trade her, but you know I wanted to see if the deal was good.......what?)) was the fact that because the buildings were unsafe even for crack consumption the phone company refused to install lines in our abode, or at least that's what our slumlord kept telling us. Anyway, it wasn't so bad, we could drive down to the corner (walking was dangerous and a good way to get raped\mugged\shot) and use the payphone in front of the corner store. Over the weeks we accumulated quite the jar of change, that we kept in the car. This got us into trouble with the city's homeless on numerous occasions, but the first one was at the corner store.

We pull into the parking lot, intent on making the all hallowed telephone call. upon closer inspection I noticed a German shepherd tied around the payphone pole, growling menacingly (is there any other way to growl? I shall explore this) at me. Unfortunately this startled me and I raised the coin cup too far up, exposing it to the many, many losers who frequented said neighborhood, including the owner of the dog, some very dirty scrawny hippie guy who smelled of spoiled milk, urine and failure.

He runs over and exclaims in the happiest voice I have heard in a long time "I've been waiting for you all day long!" and holds out a grimy hand. I must admit, dear reader, I was impressed, both that he had, as he said, waited for me "all day long" and that he had kept a dog there in order to hold me up long enough to get at my change. As we were right in front of a liquor store I was under no illusions as to what he was going to do with the money, and gave him about 2 dollars in assorted silver change (I throw pennies away, they're stupid). He unhooks the dog, counts the change intently, then has the nerve to flip me off because it is apparently not enough to purchase whatever it is he wanted! The nerve of some people! Unfortunately, my wife was driving or I would have gotten my change back and flattened the dog out of spite.

2 comments:

Bill Wabbit said...

Why the hell'd you give him money in the first place?

Stevester said...

I was naive and I really needed to make a phone call and I was impressed that he had seen me holding the change