I recently came to the conclusion that I am a supremely petty person. It's okay, I'm fine with it. In fact, I embrace it. I wrap my arms and my legs around my abject pettiness and give it a big, wet sloppy kiss. If more people embraced their short comings, the world would be a much happier, more enjoyable place to hang out... or would it?
I was on my way home one day when I noticed a homeless dude standing on the corner. I was really hoping that I would make the light at that corner because I wasn't in the mood to intentionally avoid eye contact with this guy or pretend that I was suddenly fascinated with my car stereo.
I was a few blocks from the light when I decided to gun it and try to get through the light before it changed. Fuck, red light! I'm fairly certain that the homeless dude somehow manipulated the light switching mechanism because that fuckin' light seemed to go from green to red, instantly.
Sitting there at that red light, I became suddenly fascinated with my car stereo. It's an amazing thing, really. Turn the knob clockwise and the volume increases, turn the knob counter-clockwise and the volume decreases. Wow!
The thing about red lights in the lovely city of Las Vegas is that they are excruciatingly long...
At this point, I had exhausted the amount of time that I am legally allowed to be 'suddenly fascinated with my car stereo.' I casually glance over at the homeless dude. He throws me a genuine smile and I smile back, not so genuinely. When I glanced at him, the first thing I noticed was his sign. His sign was perfect! Good grammar, syntax and spelling. Oh yeah, and his name was Wallace.
Since I recently joined the ranks of the unemployed, my charity giving guidelines have become a bit more strict. I don't know about you guys but, I prefer my homeless people's signs to have a hint of "I'm off my meds and desperate" kind of vibe to them. I want to see words with lines drawn through them, random scribbly lines, words that inexplicably go from lowercase to uppercase, and words that you have to try and decipher to figure out what they mean.
No longer do I have some Pavlovian response to any and every homeless person I see. I need to feel good about myself, dammit! If you want my money, you have to look like you need it more than I do, or else, I will suddenly become fascinated with my car stereo. Did you know that turning the knob clockwise causes the volume to increase?