Well, it's time.
Time to move on up.
You've done the one backpack carting around everything you own, then, depending upon how many feeds and church services you attended where you acquired all of those nifty hygiene kits and piles of used clothing and household goods, i.e. can openers, flashlights, etc., made your way up to five backpacks, then, a big ole' tattered piece of rolling luggage, and then....groan...the shopping cart.
Well, the shopping cart is kind of the RV of Homeless Nation, you're not breaking your back anymore, but it's a hassle at street corners and steering it across streets and it clearly marks you as a streetpuppy, because it's mobile, and anybody carting everything they own along with them, be it in backpacks, rolling luggage, or a shopping cart, is clearly homeless.
And shopping carts, like the tattered piece of rolling luggage which preceded it, break down. Usually right in the middle of a busy street while you're trying to make the light before the guy on the motorcycle heading straight for you .
So, yeah, it's time.
Time for the Box.
You, and the missus...or the mister, depending on who in your unit makes these decisions, know it's time to settle down before you maim or kill each other while arguing over who gets to carry the backpacks, or tow the rolling luggage or the shopping cart.
Kind of like the love/hate period an average couple lives through just before they make the unavoidable decision of whether or not to move in together once they realize that half of each others belongings are sitting in the other's apartment.
And if you haven't hooked up yet with the love of your life, well, the thought of a nice bachelor pad, becomes more and more appealing with each day that you long for some normalcy in your life, like just being able to kick your shoes/boots off at night without fear they will be stolen or eaten, and sleeping in the fetal position is for kids and is starting to make your back form a permanent S curve.
So, the hunt for the Box begins.
Kind of like cruising neighborhoods on the outlook for an appealing house.
Except, you're looking behind that house for the container which carried the largest item taken into that house.
Go for the Sleep Number Bed box. Usually found in the alleyways behind condos....condos built on the bay or a river, because the people who shell out the kind of money that enables them to stare at water all day/night and pretend they are in the Caribbean, are the same schmoes who will shell out the dough for a bed which supposedly rises and falls at the touch of a remote control, and thereby solving everyone of your marital problems.
Ok, now drag that bad boy around the building, late at night, preferably, as a streetpuppy dragging a huge cardboard container anywhere is going to draw the attention of the police, and/or anybody who is interested in stealing your boots.
So, and this is assuming you have scouted a proper spot, and acquired a tarp to put on the ground -in suburbs that's called the foundation - just sit the Sleep Number Bed box squarely on that tarp, and pull the leaves of the surrounding foliage around the top, and voila! You've got your starter box!
Ok, it's a fixer-upper. But you, you clever streetpuppy, you, have managed to acquire a box cutter during your time in homeless nation, and that little multi-tasking tool will enable you to design the house of your dreams right there under the tree, or the underpass or by that babbling creek that will be your....dare we say it...HOME!
So, now, instead of sitting around on a bench all day at the bus transit center, you can be doing stuff for your house/box.
Another tarp to cover the top, maybe. How 'bout another piece of cardboard to make a divider inside the box so you can have a place to eat and a place to sleep. Whoa!
And a few bags to hold clothing, and actually be able to keep the clean (whatever) from the dirty items.
Oh, and a mat to sleep on. Heaven, with your feet stretched out. And some blankets, and a pillow from a thrift store that will cost just a buck or two, and maybe a comforter.
Now, don't get too fancy with the outside and start thinkiing of a singing mailbox, or anything. You don't want anybody to really know where your house/box is located.
And that's the thing, all this thinking and living inside a box, and worrying about that box, and being territorial about that box...why...you've become....bourgeois.
You even have a garden rake and a hedge trimmer...and a pair of slippers!
Not to worry. In no time at all, somebody will discover your house/box, and you'll come home one late afternoon, all primed for that happy hour cocktail - six pack- while overlooking the babbling brook and pretending you're in the Caribbean, and horrors....you're house/box is in shreds of tattered pieces no bigger than a shoe box.
Everything is gone...even the hedge trimmer. And the slippers.
And you're right back where you started.
Rustling up a backpack and a hygiene kit and a few duds at the local church feed.
Which is actually the best part of thinking inside the box. You can be tossed out or walk away at any time and just pick up and reinvent yourself all over again.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
'TIL DEBT DO US PART
Every couple has money problems.
Doesn't matter if you're living in Trump Tower, a condo in West Palm, a double-wide in Georgia, a tenement in Chicago, a farmhouse somewhere out there in Indiana, or a cardboard box in Homeless Nation, at some point, you will argue about money.
Where it comes from, where it's going, where it went so fast, why there isn't enough, and who gets to decide all of the above.
Big or small, two people can chisel each other down to rubbles of seething, sneering, snarling mutated replicants of the same two people who once said, in all sincerety..."For richer, for poorer," and the part we like best, "and to you, all my worldly goods I do you endow."
Whether you went through the formal procedures of the frilly dress and wedding cake, or a quick flight to Vegas, or just promised to share the dough you got from selling your food stamps here in Homeless Nation when you hooked up at the feed at the parking lot outside the Greyhound bus station, it's all the same, you're a couple, only difference is, if you're in Homeless Nation you won't have to go through the fearsome...sometimes awesome cost and trauma of a divorce when you or the significant other decides to throw in the towel, or whatever it is that will get you the domestic violence beef, the restraining order and ultimately the decree that says..."faggadaboudit!"
Now, if you're living large in Trump Tower, you're probably arguing about the yacht, or buying the two thousand dollar Prada hand bag rather than the ratty thousand dollar one, and in West Palm, pretty much, expect you can exchange Prada for Versace; the folks in the double-wide in Georgia are fussin' about the cost of replacing the tatty roof one of you bought from some grifter...who then didn't bother to nail it down; the couple in the tenement in Chicago are close to a meltdown bickering over who it was who sold the coffee table to finance a night on the town (neighborhood dive) ; and the nice people in that farmhouse are struggling to figure out what the guy at the bank meant when he said all of those things about refinancing the mortgage and then handed you papers it will take the Rosetta Stone to figure out.
Now, all of these stressed out couples can use some fiscal therapy, but the people we are concerned with here are the streetpuppies in that cardboard box - or under somebody's porch, or an overpass somewhere here in Homeless Nation, who have no idea who is Prada or Versace, have not had a roof in sometime and would probably burn it for firewood if they did, same deal with a coffee table, and to whom the concept of refinancing went out the broken window the day they were locked out of their own place, and today, and in the recent (anywhere from three days to years) past couldn't put two quarters together if their life depended upon it.
Now, that's stress.
And let's get back to the basics here as mentioned above.
First, where the moolah is coming from.
Well, it isn't. And if there's no substantive government help, it won't. And the finger pointing starts here. Who's not working, why they're not working, whose turn is it to 'fly the sign' with some ridiculous legend on a piece of cardboard claiming they have to support 12 children and could somebody passing them by on the median they are standing on, please slow down long enough to throw a buck or two their way.
Then we have the Where's it going? Ok, one of you might need some new socks, the others just up and walked away after wearing them for thirty days in a row, but one of you needs some dental floss, why in heaven we do not know because both of you are down to just a couple of teeth after a long time without dental care. Or it could be one of you flew the sign and then stopped on your way back to the cardboard box or the underpass to buy an 18-pack of the cheap beer and enjoy the rest of the day by deluding yourself into thinking that buzz will last forever. Not good. And don't even think about lying about it, the smell of 18 beers ingested over the period of three hours will linger.
For the questions, where it went so fast, and why there isn't enough....see "Where's it going?"
Who gets to decide all of the above is where it gets tricky.
Neither of you is in a position here to hold the high ground when it comes to deciding who is the most fiscally efficient, and or morally and ethically responsible enough to take charge of the family checkbook -if you were, you wouldn't be here -or in this case left pocket down of the backpack one of you pinched from another sreetpuppy while they were sleeping.
Yeah, it gets that bad. Some of the streetpuppies stoop to just plain meanness when it gets desperate.
And it's pretty desperate when one of you is about to be stranded at the bus station because you have no bus pass for one of you, and you need two people to lug that huge cooler which contains all of the bottled water you nicked so that you can sell it to happy travelers passing by the median you are headed to.
See, and this is where the 'til debt do us part' comes in.
This seemingly minor altercation is going to explode into an all out battle for your lives...until the po po comes and takes you off to the clink...and now you have more stuff on your sheet, and when you get out, you both have restraining orders so you can't go near each other to finish the decision making process over who gets to lug the cooler.
So, another marriage/hookup goes South.
Money doesn't really make the world go round, but here in Homeless Nation, it is the deciding factor in the longevity -or lack thereof - of every marriage, hookup, one night stand.
And before you think of sharing a troth, a vow or endowing anything, or just sharing the same piece of cardboard as a mattress...you might wanna remember this little ditty streetpuppy once heard at a wedding celebration. A toast given to the newly minted bride and groom by a guest who had been overserved.
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
a medley of extemporanea,
and love is a thing that can never go wrong,
and I...am the Queen of Rumania.
Doesn't matter if you're living in Trump Tower, a condo in West Palm, a double-wide in Georgia, a tenement in Chicago, a farmhouse somewhere out there in Indiana, or a cardboard box in Homeless Nation, at some point, you will argue about money.
Where it comes from, where it's going, where it went so fast, why there isn't enough, and who gets to decide all of the above.
Big or small, two people can chisel each other down to rubbles of seething, sneering, snarling mutated replicants of the same two people who once said, in all sincerety..."For richer, for poorer," and the part we like best, "and to you, all my worldly goods I do you endow."
Whether you went through the formal procedures of the frilly dress and wedding cake, or a quick flight to Vegas, or just promised to share the dough you got from selling your food stamps here in Homeless Nation when you hooked up at the feed at the parking lot outside the Greyhound bus station, it's all the same, you're a couple, only difference is, if you're in Homeless Nation you won't have to go through the fearsome...sometimes awesome cost and trauma of a divorce when you or the significant other decides to throw in the towel, or whatever it is that will get you the domestic violence beef, the restraining order and ultimately the decree that says..."faggadaboudit!"
Now, if you're living large in Trump Tower, you're probably arguing about the yacht, or buying the two thousand dollar Prada hand bag rather than the ratty thousand dollar one, and in West Palm, pretty much, expect you can exchange Prada for Versace; the folks in the double-wide in Georgia are fussin' about the cost of replacing the tatty roof one of you bought from some grifter...who then didn't bother to nail it down; the couple in the tenement in Chicago are close to a meltdown bickering over who it was who sold the coffee table to finance a night on the town (neighborhood dive) ; and the nice people in that farmhouse are struggling to figure out what the guy at the bank meant when he said all of those things about refinancing the mortgage and then handed you papers it will take the Rosetta Stone to figure out.
Now, all of these stressed out couples can use some fiscal therapy, but the people we are concerned with here are the streetpuppies in that cardboard box - or under somebody's porch, or an overpass somewhere here in Homeless Nation, who have no idea who is Prada or Versace, have not had a roof in sometime and would probably burn it for firewood if they did, same deal with a coffee table, and to whom the concept of refinancing went out the broken window the day they were locked out of their own place, and today, and in the recent (anywhere from three days to years) past couldn't put two quarters together if their life depended upon it.
Now, that's stress.
And let's get back to the basics here as mentioned above.
First, where the moolah is coming from.
Well, it isn't. And if there's no substantive government help, it won't. And the finger pointing starts here. Who's not working, why they're not working, whose turn is it to 'fly the sign' with some ridiculous legend on a piece of cardboard claiming they have to support 12 children and could somebody passing them by on the median they are standing on, please slow down long enough to throw a buck or two their way.
Then we have the Where's it going? Ok, one of you might need some new socks, the others just up and walked away after wearing them for thirty days in a row, but one of you needs some dental floss, why in heaven we do not know because both of you are down to just a couple of teeth after a long time without dental care. Or it could be one of you flew the sign and then stopped on your way back to the cardboard box or the underpass to buy an 18-pack of the cheap beer and enjoy the rest of the day by deluding yourself into thinking that buzz will last forever. Not good. And don't even think about lying about it, the smell of 18 beers ingested over the period of three hours will linger.
For the questions, where it went so fast, and why there isn't enough....see "Where's it going?"
Who gets to decide all of the above is where it gets tricky.
Neither of you is in a position here to hold the high ground when it comes to deciding who is the most fiscally efficient, and or morally and ethically responsible enough to take charge of the family checkbook -if you were, you wouldn't be here -or in this case left pocket down of the backpack one of you pinched from another sreetpuppy while they were sleeping.
Yeah, it gets that bad. Some of the streetpuppies stoop to just plain meanness when it gets desperate.
And it's pretty desperate when one of you is about to be stranded at the bus station because you have no bus pass for one of you, and you need two people to lug that huge cooler which contains all of the bottled water you nicked so that you can sell it to happy travelers passing by the median you are headed to.
See, and this is where the 'til debt do us part' comes in.
This seemingly minor altercation is going to explode into an all out battle for your lives...until the po po comes and takes you off to the clink...and now you have more stuff on your sheet, and when you get out, you both have restraining orders so you can't go near each other to finish the decision making process over who gets to lug the cooler.
So, another marriage/hookup goes South.
Money doesn't really make the world go round, but here in Homeless Nation, it is the deciding factor in the longevity -or lack thereof - of every marriage, hookup, one night stand.
And before you think of sharing a troth, a vow or endowing anything, or just sharing the same piece of cardboard as a mattress...you might wanna remember this little ditty streetpuppy once heard at a wedding celebration. A toast given to the newly minted bride and groom by a guest who had been overserved.
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
a medley of extemporanea,
and love is a thing that can never go wrong,
and I...am the Queen of Rumania.
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