Double Flee A

There was a bum in the hospital today bothering people. Security made him leave.

He's a bum I've seen around the city for years. He used to offer to sing you a song for some money. Before you could answer, he'd start cooing some crazy song about the lord he was making up as he went. You'd give him a dollar and he'd stop. He was being paid to stop, and he seemed ok with that.

After the security guys kicked him out of the hospital he came around to where I was with the lovely Joyce. I was enjoying a tobacco treat. Some patients were out there too, all hooked up to their IV poles enjoying the mild weather and their own tobacco treats. This bum starts saying hey man, you got another cigarette, and I saw this as my big chance to represent the staff of our fine hospital. "Can you not bother the patients, please?" I asked as flatly as possible. Just as he was beginning to ask me very indelicately who I thought I was (whodaf...), the security guys came out. So instead he says "you got a cigarette?" I said "I don't smoke" and took a big drag. He was unhappy with this but accustomed as he is to authority, his rights as a sidewalk-person, and all the attenuating ins and outs, he mooched one from a country boy and smoked it while everybody else looked on. Security looked on and walked him a fair distance down the road before coming back.

Negatives: the lovely Joyce had to take the tunnel out of there because she didn't want to deal with the guy I pissed off, and I may get my ass handed to me someday by a very large vagrant with nothing to lose and a score to settle. This guy's a monster. Not good. I always think hell, I could get away, and I might, but you've got to consider a guy that big grabs you and it might be a little while before you break free. (When I was a kid the scariest thing I thought there was about fighting was if a guy took your face and mooshed it with his hand flat. I thought it would smear like clay and you'd just experience a stinky, bloody darkness. Some of that fear stays with me even though I kicked a guy's ass in jail because he called me a bitch. Granted, not totally relevant, but that's something you have to bring up every chance you get.)

Positives: the patient who didn't have to deal with the bum because I spoke up gave me a look of deep gratitude, and I got to feel like a helper.

The negatives seem to outweigh, but like procrastination always pays off now, I'd have to do it over again the same way. You don't go to a hospital to bum. Now that all the homeless people with the internet have read that, we can be sure to see less of them around. Once again, Dale to the rescue.

This reminds me of something I wrote about a week ago. "There are different reasons for telling stories.
Sometimes you tell stories because "hey, look how awesome I am because I did this", sometimes it's like a fable. Sometimes you just have to make sure that you're not going crazy..." Come up with all the reasons you can for telling stories and you're going to be wise in the ways of people.

I should send that in to the Reader's Digest. They've got a page for people like me.

posted by dale @ 1:23 AM