The Breakfast Club

Last night I fell asleep at 8:15pm.

Not surprisingly, I woke up this morning at 3:05am.

After I moaned and groaned and peed and blew my nose, it became painfully clear that my brain was in no mood to re-enter REM, and I was going to have to rise from my 400-thread-count womb and actually do something.

"I might as well be productive," I thought to myself. So I brushed my teeth, put on a sweatshirt, and jumped in my sedan to begin my day.

I took out the garbage; I dropped off some letters at the post office; I cruised the drive-thru at Taco Cabana (breakfast taco combo with a small hot coffee); I thoroughly scrubbed my car at the neighborhood do-it-yourself car wash (this task was not as dangerous as you might suspect, if only because this particular car wash is located on the peaceful corner of McCommas Blvd and 75, nestled safely between Highland Park and the M-Streets, thereby almost completely negating the possibility that I would be accosted by one or more of the usual cast of miscreants and scofflaws that you would expect to find at a Dallas car wash in the middle of the night, namely: The Defiled and Undesirable White Trash Prostitute, The Unemployed and Shifty Mexican, and The Cunning Negro).

It was now 4:30am, and the only errand left to do was fill up my car with gas. So I pulled into the very desolate (though well lit) Shell station at Greenville and Belmont.

Except for the Pakistani gentleman working the cash register, the gas station was dreadfully quiet and completely void of humanity. As I inserted my card into the pump and shoved the hose into my thirsty Honda's fuel tank, I scanned the surrounding area for any suspicious activity.

The coast was clear.

I exhaled and started pumping the unleaded. Almost immediately (as if I'd tripped his radar), a black homeless guy popped out of the store.

"Son of a bitch," I said to myself, "I hate bums!"

I visually gave him a once-over, to gauge his threat level. He looked pretty harmless. When my eyes made their way up to his face, I was shocked at what I saw:

In both of his hands he cradled some kind of sausage/biscuit/sandwich substance, and he was forcing this breakfast phenomenon into his mouth with great speed and commotion. The humor in this situation arose from the sheer size of this sausage-biscuit-thingy: it was roughly the size of a softball, with a clearly-defined wedge of meat in the middle, and it was crumbling at the edges as he struggled to position it safely in his piehole.

So overwhelmed was his mouth by this strange breakfast concoction that the bum was forced to lean his head faaaaaar back while he chewed and swallowed, presumably to keep from dropping any part of his valuable (though probably inexpensive) repast onto the gasoline-stained cement below. Like a bird of prey (or, like a common parakeet) his head shot back with each swallow of the grub. The hungry bum took great care to ensure that not even the smallest morsel of his meal was wasted.

In what seemed like three seconds the entire concoction was gone. I was mildly impressed (and wildly amused) with this man's sausage/biscuit-guzzling prowess (perhaps he had learned to eat like that in prison; or maybe he used to be a schoolteacher, and had mastered the art of eating a full lunch in under two minutes).

I was still pumping gas when he began moving towards my car. I had yet to finish chuckling at what had just transpired, when suddenly he was upon me ("He's deceptively quick at all he does," I thought).


Bum: "Say man, I'm trying to get to Oak Cliff... can I borrow a dollar?"


Two things about his comment jumped out at me: first-- is it just me, or is the new trend in panhandling to announce to your mark that you are currently "stranded"?? For the past year or two, the "stranded" angle has been all the rage among the homeless. "I just need a few cents to catch the bus to Duncanville, can you help me out?" or "I'm out of gas and I need 50 cents to get the train down to DeSoto." Nevermind that you will see the same guy tomorrow... he's still trying to get to Oak Cliff, right??!

It's as if the keynote speaker last year's Bum Convention announced this new strategy and all of his minions quickly followed suit: "Oooooh! Great idea! I think I'll try it every single day for the next two years on the same street corner!"

(and why do the bums never have to catch the bus back to Coppell?? Or Plano?? Why do bums desire only to go south of downtown?? What does Oak Cliff have that McKinney and The Colony lack??)

The second part of his comment that irked me was his use of the word "borrow."

Attention bums: unless you are going to come to my house and pay me back when your nonexistent paycheck arrives, you are not "borrowing." You are taking.

Back to the bum and I:


Me: "Do you have a cigarette?"

Aha!! I had him right where I wanted him! Not wanting to give him something for nothing (and feeling a slight chill outside), I asked for a smoke--something that was valuable to him, but probably not valuable enough not to give to me for an entire dollar. Sure, bums love cigarettes, but I was offering him a dollar for just one!! It would "hurt" him to give up a cigarette, but it wouldn't really hurt him...
At long last, I had beaten a bum at his own game!

He paused and stammered and began nervously grabbing at all of his pockets, as if trying to remember where he'd placed his smokes. "Got him!" I thought. Finally, he answered.

Bum: "No... but if you give me a minute, I can get you one..."

Damn. The wind was knocked out of me. I was speechless. Was I supposed to wait there while he ran off to get a cigarette from God-knows-where?! And if he did bring me back a cigarette (off of a rotting corpse? from inside of his favorite dumpster?), would I actually put it in my mouth and smoke it?!?

Damn. I sadly realized that I'd lost again.

Me: "Dude... nevermind."

The bum clutched his new dollar bill and jogged away.