Persons with Disabilities

You are supposed to give up your seat for riders or persons with disabilities when riding public transit. This should be common sense, but just in case it's not, the train recording reminds you every time the doors close.

This requirement should be extended to include drunks.

Out stumbles a crazy swearing bum shaking his beer can high in the air, smelling foul, and verbally castrating the two poor gentlemen left on the train. This is the part I witnessed.

Prior, one of the castrated men entered the train a stop earlier. He came onto the train with a walker and wanted a seat. Lucky for him, one was available. The only impediment was that the drunk was occupying one seat, his beer can the other.

The man asked the drunk to move his things so he could occupy the vacant seat, but the drunk refused, so... the man picked up the drunk's things and shoved them at him.

That didn't go over well. When I got on the train, I surveyed the situation and then I said to walker man, "Well, you really pissed him off didn't you?"

Best Friends

I had to do this horrible gig the other day at Safeway, which involved passing out 500 coupons in 5 hours. It's as awful as it sounds, yes. Even if 100 people came into Safeway in an hour, I assure you, only about 1 out of that 100 would be considerate enough to just take the coupon!

If I can offer a bit of advice to anyone... if you see someone passing out coupons, just take the coupon! You don't need to chat, or shove it back in their face, or stand in front of them reading it, just take the coupon. You can leave it in your cart, or you can throw it away later, but just take the stupid coupon! Guess what... the coupon hander outer doesn't care if you use it or not, they just have to get rid of their coupons!

This gig lasted for a couple of days, and after the first couple of hours I got a bit testy. One person refused to take the coupon, then looked at me and said, "Do I look stupid enough to take one of those coupons?" I replied, "Do I look stupid enough to care whether you want one or not? If you don't want it, don't take it. I don't care!"

Another lady took it, and then tried to give it back to me my shoving it in my hands without speaking. I ignored her, and she just kept pushing it against me. Finally I said, "Does that mean you don't want the coupon?"

One of the days I was lucky enough to be in a great neighborhood where a homeless man's home was just outside the doors I was located near. I'm no discriminator of persons, and what do I know - maybe he had on his shopping list the very thing that I had a coupon for, so I gave him one! And, the next hour passed very quickly as I learned this man's life story. We will call him, Rufus.

Rufus is a famous painter. Painting is something that you either have, or don't have. It's hereditary. Like being evil. Being evil is something you inherit from your parents. Rufus' paintings are currently hanging in the Smithsonian. The thing is though, Rufus never signed any of his paintings and someone tried to rip him off by painting a look a like and claiming that the famous Rufus painted them - but see, the conartist signed them! So Rufus knew that they weren't his. Rufus brother is not a painter, but he is good with the ladies. The ladies have gotten him into a lot of trouble though, and that is hereditary - being good with the ladies. Rufus' brother has also gotten a lot of diseases from being "good" with the ladies, but Rufus was smarter than that.

Later I saw Rufus waiting in line for the bathroom. Like I said, this Safeway was in a great neighborhood with just one solitary bathroom for the whole store. Rufus was very kind when he saw me in line.

Rufus said, "You gotta pee?"

I replied, "Yeah."

"Oh, go ahead. I can just go outside," Rufus offered.

Romantic Serenade

It was pretty late last night when we took the dogs for a walk before bed, so no one and nothing much was out and about. No one except the drunk wanderer that was underneath my bedroom window screaming the night before some nonsense about his underwear.

It must be getting warmer.

Last night, he moved his concert up to the popular homeless park. We were a good 3 blocks away, both east and north and yet could still hear his poignant slurs. Naturally, we went for a closer listen. As he was rifling through the concrete trash bin, a permanent fixture at the park, he would periodically find something to get excited about... He would shake his treasures high above his head and let out a hoot and holler. It sounded like a cross between Amy Winehouse and a dying dog: "Whooooooooiiiiiiaaaaaoooooowwww!"

I can't imagine I would have found so many treasures in the garbage myself that night, but perhaps I am a little too discriminating.

He kept this up until the cops came and diverted his attention to a new moving treasure, us! We walked briskly home and fortunatley he was too drunk to keep up, though bless him he sure did try!

Pretty Woman

As I'm walking up Broadway yesterday, heading straight for me was a crazy bag lady screaming her lungs out! She looked pretty well put together, clean clothes, and a cute berat which suited her so at first glance I wouldn't have pegged her for a hobo.

While she was still a good 25 ft. away she screeched: "I don't understand the women in this city!" and abruptly veered away from me and headed into the street.

However, just a few seconds later she shot her eyes back at me and barked at me questioningly, "Wait! Are you a woman?"

Emergency at the Mazatlan

We went out for lunch a few days ago at a restaurant right in the thick of downtown off a heavy populated busy street. We decided on this locale because the back of our Fred Meyer reciept hosted an $8 off coupon. Despite the discount, I wouldn't recommend it: dirty dining, bad service, bad food, and subsequent bad tummy aches!!

After we decided against finishing our meal and then had to search the restaurant to track down our server, we waited for our bill in the reception area taking a gander at the host desk. We saw there your usual host items, menus, seating charts, restaurant layout, schedule, but the item which stood out the most, in big bold sharpie letters, covering at least 1/4 of the desk read: NON-POLICE EMERGENCY NUMBER ... ... ..... !

The service may be horrendous, but at least they've got their priorities in line!

Never Nude

I really love to ride the trolley. Other people who love to ride the trolley, also love to take up two seats, talk to other people who are reading books, demand directions, and request lifelong commitments from unsuspecting individuals.

But a first for me, was seeing my very first never nude. My only regret was not introducing myself and making my own lifelong commitment.

This "person" had on steel toe boots (a must for any vagrant) over black nylons with zero runs in them! Beautiful! I wasn't sure from there if this person was sporting pants or not, because from there I only saw the itty bitty like black trench coat buttoned up to the collar with a matching black fur round cap atop stringy platinum blonde shoulder length hair. My ride wasn't yet complete when our never nude stepped off the bus and bent over before entering "Max's" revealing his teeney weeney cut off denim shorts!

I was so excited!