DATING FOR STREETPUPPIES

This is not about hookups, friends with benefits, or the occasional one night of ecstacy behind a dumpster.

This is about straight out dating.  For Streetpuppies.

You may not remember much about dating, and what you do remember will depend upon your age, and the era you lived in when you first started to feel that ping in the area of your heart where the love lever is located, and started to look at some guy or gal, and think to yourself....hmmmmmm.

Or maybe you looked at some guy or gal and thought..."Hey, what a coooool  car, I want me some of that." Or, "Hey, what a coooooool set of pins on that babe, and you know, same thing.

In fact, what with the advent of singles bars, then dating services, then the internet, then internet dating services for people who were too busy with their blackberries and iPods to take care of the love lever thing, actual dating protocol has morphed into something unrecognizable to a guy with a coooooool car, or a babe with a coooooolll set of pins.

And if you're living in Homeless Nation, well dating has probably morphed into the hook up, and one night of ecstacy behind a dumpster thing.

But Street puppies need real companionship and affection, and they get pings in the heart, too.

And the whole ritual of dolling up just to spend a few hours with somebody you will probably sit across from at a table filled with food and tell lies to each other for a couple of hours, though abhorent on the face of it, is probably worth the time just to take your mind off  tomorrow's struggle with the food stamp agency.

Now, there are some barriers to actually dating, here in Homeless Nation.

First, we don't have singles bars, unless you count the corner outside the convenience store where they sell the nasty four-packs. 

And there is no dating service on the planet, i.e. Match.com or e-harmony, and the like who would let a Street Puppy past the first line on the application.,  or making that awful video you have to make so somebody can look at it and wonder if you are the one.

The internet dating services present another set of problems, first you have to have more access to a computer than the couple of hours a day you are usually granted at the public library, and you don't want to cut into your Japanese animation watching time.

Then, the internet is clogged with perverts, con men -and women - and Fabio and Angelina wannabes who will e-mail a photo to you which has been airbrushed with a staple gun and a whole bunch of lies about their jobs and incomes and even their names. 

Which brings us back to the actual dating scene where you sit down from each other across a table for a few hours, as a curtain raiser on a situation which could blossom into a wedding on the beach at Maui.

Now, the first thing, is choosing the person you really want to spend some time with, both before and after the table thing.

Not many Street puppies are actually presentable enough -what with all of the tattoos and rings through the nose and stuff - to actually set off a vibe which says, "Hey, let's us two go off together and talk and laugh and spend time together," instead of "Whooooaaaa.....let's boogie 'til we puke!"

But, hey, the people with the tats and rings and stuff need companionship, too, just not your companionship.

Now, in order to get a date,  you have to find somebody first, and if you look around the bus stop, or the park you hang in, you'll  probably find somebody as lonely and as loving and as lost as you are.

Now,  you  have to ask that person something, like...'Hey...you wanna go out sometime?"

That will do for now, because if you said "I was wondering if you would like to dine with me on Saturday Night?" they would probably flee.

Now, after the guy/gal says, "Hey, yeah, let's go out," this is where the going gets tough. And the tough get going.

Set a time. And a Day.  Nobody in Homeless Nation lives their life according to the Blackberry.

Ask what kind of food she/he likes, and hope it is not French.

Actually, hope it's something at a local feed, because you don't have the dough to go to the movies or a concert or dinner, and she/he probably understands that, unless they are a total gold digger and thought you were good for a Wendy's burger, a bus pass and a couple packs of little cigars.

Now, arrange for a pick up time.

That's right, pick her/him up at a designated site, preferably near the feed you have both decided will be a good idea, and within walking distance, because you don't even want to get into the transportation problem of providing two bus passes.

When you pick up your date, make sure you are showered or cat-bathed, clean clothes, and smell nice.

Make sure the pick up time is oh, about an hour before the feed starts.

Now, you have to make the decision, do you stop at the convenience store and get two cold beers and sit around under a tree someplace and drink and talk and get to know each other...or do you get in line as soon as possible at the feed so you won't end up having to fight off the inevitable bully who will cut the line.

Do the beer thing.  Maybe a few beers.  You will both probably need to relax a bit, because neither of you have done this in a long time instead of just hanging out.

Ok, dinner is over.  And it wasn't that bad, five or six casseroles and old bagels and fruit cups with peaches and syrup. 

Now, the inevitable awkward question on even a first date. Your place or mine?

Neither of you have a home.  Even more awkward.

You're going to have to drop her/him off at their spot, or part company  at the best neutral place, like the bus stop, or the park.

And then say, "I'll call you."

Perfect. 

You've just had your first real date in a long time.

Next week, you can have another date, and not necessarily with the same person, and on and on, and pretty soon, you will be looking forward to Saturday nights again, just like you did back in the day.

Saturday night, when you can spend time with another person who set off that ping in your heart.

Who knows, one of those Saturday nights may even wind up on the road ahead on a beach in Maui, with candlelight and the whole disaster.

SLINGER

Slinger is flush today.

He's got three quarters he just talked out of a passenger who was rushing across the bus terminal which serves as his home office.

He asked her for "57 cent."

That's Street puppy speak for "I'm going to ask you for an odd amount because you won't take the time to count it out, and you probably have quarters in hand anyway for change for the pop machine, and I won't ask for a whole dollar because that would sound like I'm extravagant with your money, which, when you see the smile on my baby face and my gentle voice, you will part with because it's hard to turn down somebody who says to you, "Please, ma'am', do ya have 57 cent for me to get something to eat, I'm real hungry."

With those three quarters he now has enough money to buy a pack of cigars both for his day's supply of smokes, and to sell for a quarter apiece, and that revenue, turned over several times as he acquires enough quarters to buy more cigars will feed the beast of his 3-pack a day habit he has had since he became homeless twelve years ago.

The rest of the quarters and dimes and nickels he will needle from bus passengers, neighborhood passers by and acquantances will be spent mostly on his crack head girlfriend who will sleep all day at their "spot" a couple of blocks away under a highway underpass, and then will rise mid-day and stumble down the short path to the bus station and demand her usual egg sandwich lunch, a soda, cigarettes and enough dough to buy a couple of vicodin to keep her nerves straight until she can score more rock tonight.

And at some later time in the day, which neither of them will know, she will make the excuse that she is going to the john, or to the corner for a paper, or across the street for a soda and then disappear, for hours, or days at a time, and spend all of  Slinger's money on her rock of crack.

All of the money for all of that will  have come from Slinger's day long entreaties for the loose and/or small change his 'customers' , these strangers,  give him as he snares them on their way through the bus terminal.

Slinger doesn't travel far during the day's trawling.  He doesn't fly a sign, or sell papers on the street.  He sticks to the area he knows best, the bus terminal, his "office,"  and the people who will give up their change.

People he can spot fifty yards off he knows he can hustle, sometimes just by the way they are staring at the ground, or straight ahead, or right at him. 

And he's no fool.  He knows he has to give something in return, so he has become a walking font of information regarding directions...so long as the information you want extends to a couple of square miles around the bus station.

That and the free newspaper he snaps up from boxes within the two square miles around the bus station, then piles next to him and hands them out to customers...many of who, for years, have thought the paper costs a quarter.

But, hes an honest man.  He wouldn't steal -except for the free papers - he's not an alcoholic, or a drug addict.  Once a year, on his birthday, he goes to a Karoke bar way up on Nebraska Avenue and sings songs in his beautiful and soft voice and drinks three beers.

And when his crack head girlfriend disappears for hours or days on end, he misses her, cries for her, and is always happy to see her return. 

You know this, because you can see the light in his eyes, and the tender smile that spreads across his face when he first sees her step off the bus upon her return.  No matter what shape she's in.

Slinger's life wasn't always this way.

He lived up North.  He had a family...parents, and siblings all part of a middle-class life he cherished and never thought would change.

He married.  A woman he loved so much he tried to commit suicide when she died suddenly on their 14th wedding anniversary of a disease neither of them even knew she had.

He loved her so much because she was a woman so worthy of love.  She was loved so much that the father of one of her students at a tony private school where she was a teacher, a father who was a famous movie star paid thousands and thousands of dollars for her funeral and a huge party afterward.

After the funeral, the party, and the suicide attempt, Slinger just simply closed the door to their home and walked away and never looked back.

He ended up in a deep Southern state, as far away as you can get away from Upstate New York. and survived on odd jobs and dishwashing gigs he could do even on days when he was terribly hung over or just plain blind drunk.

He ran out of odd jobs a long time ago, and settled for life at the bus terminal, where he knows everybody, and everybody knows him, and he gets all of their change and knows how to give them all directions to anyplace they need or want to go.

Anyplace that is, within a two mile radius of the seat he perches on at the bus stop.

Slinger has made a home in Homeless Nation, right there at the bus stop.  His bus stop.  Slinger's bus stop.

Slinger made a couple of attempts to leave his corner of Homeless Nation.

He scrabbled together enough money to buy a bus ticket to Texas to live with a woman he had met on the internet on a computer at the library.

He ended up walking most of  the way back from the little backwater Texas town  after two weeks with the woman in her little house in the middle of nowhere with her six dogs and five cats and a drinking problem and bottles and bottles of meds for the bi-polar affliction.

On the  1,600 mile way back,  to the bus stop, he slept where he dropped from exhaustion each night.  He woke up one morning in the middle of a bear habitat

The next time he walked all the way to another town a couple of  hundred miles away for the promise of a job that didn't work out.  On the walk back from that adventure, he lost his shirt and ended up with the worst sunburn he had ever had in his life.

He doesn't take trips anymore.

Time has no little  meaning to him now, except for one day at a time, and enough of that time to gather enough quarters to take care of the crack head girlfriend he loves with all his heart.

And, someday, he will die here, within a couple of square miles of a bus stop where he knows everybody and everybody knows him.

But for now, he will scramble around every morning and snatch the free papers, and hustle for the quarters from his customers and other strangers, and wait for his crack head girl friend to step off a bus so he can love her with all of his heart.....no matter what shape she is in.

HELTER SHELTER PART TWO

Let's say you have been invited to stay in one of the aforementioned shelters, havens, harbours or ministries.

You have either submitted to a battery of tests asking, among other things if you have ever had homicidal tendencies; been taken there by the policeman who found you slumped over a red ant hill by the bus stop you slipped off because you were drunk or high enough to care less about being bitten alive by critters; you were caught sleeping outside under somebody's porch, and the policeman gave you the alternative of jail or the nice shelter down the road....or you just wandered into an office one day which was staffed by scrubby clean True Believers in matching t-shirts emblazoned with a rings of fire motif, and they talked you into joining their new spiritual awakening movement after you surrendered  power of attorney, and all of your dough including the loose change.

You've made the leap.  You are now a 'sheltered' streetpuppy. 

However, Uncle Sam still views you as homeless because you are not yet at a 'fixed' address, so don't throw away that sleeping bag just yet.

Being a sheltered streetpuppy has advantages.  And disadvantages.  Let's go over some of those advantages and disadvantages.

You have a place to sleep at night that is not moving around under you.  You most likely have a sheet or a blanket to cover you.  You can take a shower...in fact, you are forced to take a shower.

 You can go to the bathroom without squatting under a tree.   You are assured of a meal...if it is a longer term shelter, you are assured of up to three meals a day.  You might be able to watch TV for a couple of hours a day. You will probably be given clean clothes to wear, and some hygiene materials.

 You may, if it is a longer term situation shelter be assigned a 'case manager' who will help you get an ID, or maybe a job or help you solve a legal problem, like that warrant for failure to appear, or open container charge.

 The kind of things that happen when you are on the street and looking the wrong way when Mr. Policeman slides up.

There is a sizable staff of underlings to the counselors, usually called associates.  The associates are there to tell you what is where, and when to go to bed, what chore you will be expected to do,  and when to change your underwear and so on.

You have companionship and understanding  from your shelter mates/street puppies, and a lot of nods of the head when you tell your 'story.'  After all, you are all in the same raggedy ole' boat.

The above fall into the category of advantages.

Let's look more closely at those advantages.

Depending upon the kind of shelter you have landed in, you will be sleeping either in a  large'dorm in a bunkbed on loan from a jail; a large room filled with either mats or single beds on loan from a jail; a smaller dorm with fewer bunkbeds from you know where, or simply sprawled on a large sofa filled with Gawd knows what kind of vermin, and it will be in front of a large TV which is never turned off. 

You can take a shower, but be mindful of the fact that most shelters have very little hot water to spare, and the showers are old and moldy and often open to the dorm area ditto the bathrooms which are old and moldy and very often broken down and downright aromatic. 

If there is food at all, other than donated sandwiches, you will be eating the chef-cook's idea of whatever it is that he happened to put together from the food left from the large pile of donations which went to his and his helpers homes, or sold to local stores.  Thus, you should take a supply of vitamins with you, as the nutritional value of most shelter food is far less than even the most meager food served at 'feeds'.

Don't bother with the TV thing.  Vicious fights break out over control of the remote control in these places, and you don't want to be around when the cops are called to arrest the guy who lodged the remote into the nose of the guy who wanted to watch something other than "Billy The Exterminator."

Generous people very often drop mounds of clothing at shelters.  Those clothes are picked over by the staff of the shelter so you will be getting the dregs of the mounds, but if you are patient, you will come up with something decent to wear at the job interview which your case manager will help you to arrange.

Ooops.  Case Manager.  Job Interview.  Help with an ID. 

Good luck with that.

Your Case Manager probably knows as much about job interviews as she knows about changing a tire on an 18-wheeler.  She/He doesn't belong in that job because they have no training for that position in the shelter other than something they have lied about on their own application.  And if they are responsible for giving you vouchers for outside supplies and/or bus passes...there will likely be a kick back situation, and if you refuse, you may find yourself back squatting under that tree real fast.

Ditto if you refuse any sexual advances.

Ditto if you report any of this to a 'higher up person.'

The staff of underlings who man the front desk and hand you stuff like the hygiene kits.  Now, we are out of Klingon territory,and are into Darth Vader territory.  Many of these people have been homeless.  And that experience has twisted their minds so badly that they now take out their previous suffering on street puppies who are under their, if not guidance, well, at least the key to the bathroom.

They will taunt you with trivial matters, implying that your IQ is no higher than your blood pressure reading, demanding to know where you are hiding the corn crinkles they know you are hiding in your bag..as they are the enforcers of the 'no contraband' rule in every shelter, that rule being the rule that says 'hand over everything you buy at the family dollar store on the corner, because I need it.

They will send you packing out into the cold or heat with everything you have on your back or your bags or suitcases, and if you don't make the exit curfew, which is usually around dawn, and lug that stuff around with you all day, well, they will just help themselves to your belongings and claim they threw it out and the police took it away.  And you have absolutely no legal recourse at all to prevent this from happening.

The underlings are also in charge of bus passes.  Good luck with that one, even if one has been approved for you, they will take it for themselves, deny they got the memo approving the pass, then accuse you of lying about getting the bus pass.  Force you to change your clothes if they think your pants are too tight, and to most of these people, everybody's pants are too tight because the underlings sit around all day confiscating and eating  all of those treats from the family dollar. 

Don't ever talk back to them.  They will call the police and say you have battered them.  Then they will go into your room while you are being carted off to jail, and take all of your contraband.

Do what they say, never mind the foam at the mouth as they break into uncontrollable screaming about the banana somebody managed to slide by them last night, you will find yourself right back squatting under that tree.

Ditto if you refuse any sexual advances.

Ditto if you report any of this to a...'higher-up' person.

Companionship, Understanding ears and nods  of the head  from other street puppies   are important, but you need to know, that you will be in the company of people who seem to  have been suckled by wolves.

You may be an anomoly.  A blip on on the Homeless Nation screen just sailing through on your way home.

Most of your companions in the shelter will be die-hard, seasoned street people who are looking at you with such understanding eyes and ears because they want to know when you will fall asleep and it will be prudent to take everything you have brought with you. 

These are not comrades at arms.  They will twist your head, twist your arm, and twist your soul if you are weak enough to dumb yourself down enough to be able to communicate with them in any meaningful way.

And they don't care about your story.  They are interested in you for one thing.  Their motto is, "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine."  And they are so skilled and charming, they can get away with giving you the shirt off your own back.

Now that we've gone through many of the advantages, let's see about the disadvantages of shelter living.

The main disadvantage of shelter living is that you may be off the street just long enough enough to lose your edge if you are foolish to stick around any of these places for too long.

And you need that edge to survive on the street. 

If we sound too distrustful, too harsh, way too negative.  It is.  But  in order to survive on the street, you need to be distrustful, and harsh and negative when dealing with the likes of many of the people you will encounter, be they  streetpuppies, counselors and underlings at shelters or the big shots who thunk it all up and will probably serve time some day for mismanaging millions of dollars which was headed for Homeless Nation, but somehow ended up in the Cayman Islands.  Or Vegas.

If you stay at any one of these shelters, it is about 80 percent likely that one early morning, you will load all of your belongings onto your back,  on the way out the door, sock the underling you hate most right in the nose, and never go back.  You'll get a new sleeping bag, and go back to squatting under that tree...and breathing free.

It happens.

HELTER SHELTER

Homeless nation is partially populated -some would say littered - with thousands of  structures, ranging in size from a Chicago style bungalow of the late 30's, to behemoth concrete structures sprawling over an entire city block.

These structures, sometimes called shelters, or havens or harbours or ministries are filled with street puppies seeking shelter from the elements, or havens from, well, each other, and/or food and and help with finding jobs and clothing and footwear,  and underwear, and deodorant and toothpaste and shampoo, and most important of all, a place to sleep every night without fear of rolling over and falling into a river.

Whatever they are called, and/or  for whatever purpose the streetpuppy has landed in one of these shelters, havens, harbours or ministries, these structures are not not to be thought of as any kind of permanent fix in the life of the street puppy who either walked through or was kicked or dragged  through the door behind which they will find a lifestyle that is more fun than a barrel of klingons. 

These shelters are merely a stop on the way -the hope is - out of Homeless Nation, indeed a portal through which shimmers the light which  beguiles every street puppy into thinking he/she can and will make it through this detour in the life and all will be well on the other side of that portal.

And in each and every one of these shelters, behind all of those doors, and through all of those portals, lies the crux of the whole problem with homelessness. 

For each and every street puppy, at some point in the trek through Homeless Nation, it must be determined if this journey is a detour, or was, in fact the destination.

And many of the shelters, havens, harbours and ministries are, er, staffed with people who are in charge of making that determination.  Kind of like a triage operation, except the victims are walking and talking.

Anyway, that is what the staffers in these shelter places are supposed to do, and some of them have even gone all the way through college to  study how to do this.

Yup.  It's right there on the curriculum thing, all of the courses you need to get a degree in "Helping Street Puppies get off of my street, and your street, and onto their own street."  Or something like that.

Let's see, these are courses which the college attendee starts attending well into the Junior year when the attendee...or the attendees parents have figured out that junior or missy is going nowhere with a degree in "DJ spinning for dollars,"  or "Designing Apps for ordering gyros over the cell phone from another county," or "Making a killing in the trade of cheetah pelts."

Yup.  Every shelter, haven, harbour and ministry in Homeless Nation is filled not only with Street puppies who are -maybe- trying to find their way out of Homeless Nation, all of these places are cluttered with people who, armed with some social this or that diploma and a few months of internship in a hot dog stand, are there in the shelter for one purpose...to make the life of the street puppy so miserable, the puppy will, at  one point bolt, even though it has not been determined  if the puppy is indeed a visitor, or a future casualty.

They hate their jobs, the hate the people they are supposed to be serving, they hate the surroundings...bleak by any standard, and they hate the fact that they have to pretend to like what they are forced to do until that major job at K-Force or Bio-tech opens up.

So, having all of this hate and disdain for the puppies, brings out the worst in them, these care-givers, these guardians of the gate into Klingon territory, these master minds of the knife in the back trick, they turn to the practices which get a lot of them fired....when they are caught doing the things they do so well.

These guardians cheat the street puppies out of money intended for them;  they force them into personal liasions using the threat of expulsion from the shelter; they sleep with the husbands of the women street puppies; they sleep with the wives of the male street puppies, using the power they hold as a counselor to them both; they obtain a job as the "addictions counselor" using the guise of a recovering Heroin addict and all the while robbing the ministry of money in order to pay for an ongoing Heroin addiction;

They steal all of the good food which rolls into the shelter from kind and caring citizens and use it to allow them to feed themselves and their families high on the hog, while the puppies are scarfing up eight month old sausages;  They  unleash their hidden bigotries upon to young women who are struggling to learn to cope with a baby and the concept of working by brow beating them endlessly until the puppy is totally beaten down;  They use their power over the simple things, like, leaving a tooth brush in the wrong place as an excuse for a tongue lashing, and a punishment added if the street demurs.

In short, what you have staffing most of these so called, shelters, havens, harbours, ministries, et all are, largely a bunch of  misfits who do not have a clue as to how to guide a street puppy anywhwere, except straight into the hands of the many misfits and charlatans who line the streets of Homeless Nation waiting for new meat to stray out of those shelters, either in banishment or absolute frustration with the system.

Granted, most of the puppies who wander into these shelters, are not exactly flavor of the month.  In fact, many of them are what we, back in Chicago would call "Mean Motor Scooters." And they are lookin' to work the system, and victimize the rest of the puppies, and create the kind of mayhem which exists in most shelters.

But there are the innocents who are there out of absolute necessity and who are truly on a detour, and not at their destination, and are the butts of endless jokes of the Mean Motor Scooters for their pieties and grace.

 And there are some angels.  Once in a while you come across some angels in these shelters.  Seldom, but it happens.  And these angels should be given the National Legion of Honor Medal for their truly heroic and loving and charitable work and attitudes and care and guidance through the mean streets of Homeless Nation.

And, you never know...maybe one of those  Klingon staffers, one day, well...just two pay checks away from, you know where, and then, then you will see...were these staffers on a detour through Homeless Nation....or was that shelter,  their own destination.

It happens.

GET YOUR KIT TOGETHER

Joining up with the Streetpuppy corps is a little like joining the Marines.

Except that you don't have to go through a recruiter, or one of those goofy, teary going away parties with mom in the kitchen, wringing her hands, and weeping, "Oh, my baby is all grown up, and that nice judge gave him  - or her -the choice of the slammer or the Marines..."......and you don't have to get one of those high and tight hair things or get that ring thing out of your nose. Or eyebrow.  Or...wherever.

But, in order to soldier on in the Streetpuppy corps, you are going to have to be, or at least act like , one squared away Marine.

And that starts with the kit. 

You may call it the back pack, or that awful rolling wheel  suitcase thing that breaks down the first day you use it, or you can use a gym bag, doesn't matter, this will be the one piece of equipment which needs to carry the  few actual essentials required for life on the street.

It's the Brits who named the bag which holds the collection of articles necessary for survival the kit... so don't blame us that it wasn't named bag, or purse.

We recommend the back pack as the kit of choice.  gym bag too small, rolling wheel thing too noisy and cumbersome, and it breaks down the first day you use it.  Usually right in the middle of a busy crosswalk.

Don't chintz out on the back pack.  The cheaper packs are not built for wear and tear, we don't care how many cute things are hanging off the sides, or that Sponge Bob has endorsed it.

You'll want a plain, dark colored, thick canvass number with a whole lot of pockets, and durable straps, and industrial  strength zippers and snaps,  and the ability to carry up to 30 pounds without ripping apart just as you are trying to run from the person who has decided he wants the back pack....and everything in it.

 And everything in it, should be minimal and multi-tasking, and easily replaceable.

You're not packing a trousseau here -for the guys, that word is something that women used to call the collection of delectable lingerie and such that was put together for the honeymoon.

There is no use for lingerie in Homeless Nation, unless you have ripped it up in order to make hankies.

And you will be ripping up tank tops for hankies, so ixnay on the lingerie.

Ok.  First, a small baggie, into which you will place:  social security card;  birth certificate;  Photo ID required in your state;  health insurance card;  bus pass;  emergency notification card -unless you are really trying to get lost in homeless nation, in which case, pretend you have amnesia from the beating.
five bucks.  That's pin money, in case you are enough of a pin head that you let somebody steal the kit;
debit card, that's if you have one, and you should, and remember the pin number, and do not let anybody even know you have one of those things, it is an open invitation to kidnapping.

Now.  This small baggie does NOT go into your kit.  This small baggie is your life line.  Only an idiot would put it into the same bag holding things which are -though costly - not real hard to replace.

No.  That baggie goes around your neck, on a string -or piano wire -, or in the summer, around your waist, just under the pants line.  And do not ever, ever let anybody know this little bag exists. 

Okay.  Now the kit.  Socks.  Undies.  Flashlight.  Swiss Army Knife.  Toothbrush.  Toothpaste.  Washcloth, which will double as a towel.  Two shirts.  One extra pair of pants.  One pair of flip flops.
(that's because, and you can be sure of this...if you take your shoes off while you are sleeping, they will be stolen.)  Small pack of kleenex.  small spray cologne.  one small bug repellant. One light blanket. One sweater.   One poncho.  (forget the umbrella, too easy for an attacked to use against you as a weapon)  headband.  baseball cap.  Reading glasses..  Sun-glasses. Small bag of toiletries.  And we said small.

Don't overload with the hygiene bags at feed giveaways.  Nobody needs five bottles of shampoo.  Or hand and body lotion.  And the ladies should be allowed one lip gloss and one eye liner.

And just because the giveaways may include fabulous five year old designer jeans with the label intact, does not mean that you need them.  Who cares if Donna Karan or Calvin Klein once embraced the muscles in your butt?

The cell phone goes into your front pocket, and don't be stupid and use it in public, it is another thief magnet.

And no food.  Ants can smell that stuff five miles away, and bug repellent does not work on them.

Now, you may think all of this is too lite, even for lite traveling.

Wrong.  You are not going to need too much. And you will be replacing things as you go.  And, if it is not absolutely necessary to your survival, it's dead weight. 

And, you're not planning to stay here forever, anyway, and if you came into homeless nation with luggage, that's not a good thing.  Kind of like a trousseau.

And one more...and maybe the most important thing to put into your kit. 

We don't care if you call it the Lord,  God,  Allah,  Buddha,  or the Temple of the Blue Parrot.  Make room in your kit for the higher being who will stay with you through this perilous journey.

  And speak to and listen regularly to the Lord, God, Allah, Buddah, or the Blue Parrot, or whomever else you need to hang onto while you're in homeless nation.  The knowledge of, and the comfort of the love of that higher being will get you through what surely will be a time of hell.

And remember what Winston Churchill said at the onset of WW II  "When you're going through Hell...keep on going!"

GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER

Ooooh, over the river and through the hoods to somebody's house we go!

Ok, party puppies.  THE party down day of the year is nearly here, and if you have been invited to savor a fine meal, companionship, jocularity, and wine and song, we're here to help you make Thanksgiving a very special day.

One you will remember and cherish until next Thanksgiving Day. 

If you can remember it at all.

Now, this is only for street puppies who have been invited to dine with civilians.  At their abode.

We're not talking about a 'feed' and long lines of puppies, paper plates grasped in cold fingers, smiling faces behind long tables , and strong arms loading your plate with the usual fare, dressed up with,maybe, if you're lucky, real turkey, ham and sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie and at the very end of the table a take away bag with tooth paste, body wash, and socks and other stuff which can only remind you that you are not going away from the table to a sofa and sprawl away the afternoon watching a lot of guys  dressed  in knee pants and helmets beat up on each other.

No, you, you lucky puppy you, are going to an actual house, condo, co-op, trailer, or even an RV driven all the way down from Flint, Michigan to sit in a park the whole winter,  while the driver watches a lot of guys dressed in knee pants and helmets beat up on each other.

Now, we have addressed this issue before - dining with civilians - but a refresher course is good when one considers that wherever you have been invited, you are representing every Street Puppy in homeless nation, and it is important to be on your best behaviour in that house, condo, co-op, trailer or RV.

How you got invited to the civilian abode is not important.

Most likely some kindly person got loaded one night, and talked to you for five hours at a saloon he stumbled into because he forgot where he had parked his car.

And even more likely, woke up the next morning in his abode, checked his voicemail to see if any messages were from the police asking  him to come down for a chat about the place where his car had been towed from,  and instead,  found, to his horror, your message thanking you profusely for inviting him over for Thanksgiving dinner with the folks.

Like we said, doesn't matter.  The die is cast.  The toothpaste is out of the tube. The genie is out of the bottle.

Anybody who takes back an invitation to a holiday dinner with family is truly a churlish and mean person and he knows that, and right now, all he can think of is how to break the news to his wife that he has invited a homeless guy to Thanksgiving.

If this civilian has extended the invitation to a gal he has met in a saloon, all bets are off.  No amount of self loathing over being a churlish and mean man is worse than a divorce over the holiday season.

So.  A few quick tips to get through the day.  A day, which for you, if you haven't been in a true home in a long time, could be nerve racking.

Not to worry.  The guy who invited you is kinda bent out of shape about it too.

Ok.  First.  Do not bring the back pack.  leave it in the bushes outside his house if you have to, but don't even think of bringing that thing into a civilian's home. 

Second.  Clean up before you present your self at your host's door.  And that includes the finger nails.
Even if you have to use TWO Wendy's washrooms to do it.  And shave. 

Third.  Lose the hoody.  Get a college sweat shirt from the local thrift shop.  Harvard will do, but University of Michigan is better...it screams..."Clean Cut, wholesome... and not smarter than you, the dolt who lost your own car."

Fourth. Take a gift for the hostess.  Anything....well, not a hygiene kit, or a blanket you got from the feed at the church, and nothing personal like a cheap bottle of cologne.  And don't steal it.  Bad karma.

Fifth. Be polite...V  E  RY  polite.  No chips on the shoulder, no whining, no staring at the old guy in the corner who is cursing at the cat.  he's loaded, and probably doesn't know where he is anyway.

Sixth.  No groveling.  You've probably been in homeless nation long enough to know there's a lot of social climbing down going on.  But, resist the impulse, when the platters are brought to the table, to moan in ecstacy..."My God!  A real potato..."  And other things which will unsettle anybody else at the table.

Seventh.  If you drink at all...and you will notice some hesitancy at offering you a libation...say.."A beer would be fine."  Period.  And stick to it.  Obviously, in some parts of homeless nation, offering a beer to a street puppy is like offering a donkey one oat.  And you do your share of drinking, but don't even think about getting as loaded as your host...and the old guy in the corner.

Eighth.  Don't scratch your ears out, don't pick the nose, don't eat like an underfed pit bull, and do NOT pick up a morsel of food with your hands.

If you are wondering why all of these pointers are numbered, it's so that you can use make notes of them on the inside of your shirt cuffs.

Ninth...and last...and most important, do not, under any circumstances, embroil yourself in any conversations which bear any resemblance at all to long simmering family feuds and rivalries and carefully nurtured grudges..these things always erupt at Thanksgiving family dinners.  They are awkward, and  can easily get out of hand, and you do not want to be remembered as the homeless guy who tried to solve a family fight by taking sides with that old guy in the corner.

Relax, have a good time, eat well, and smile a lot. 

Then, thank everybody profusely and sincerely, make a fashionably early exit...and head straight for that bar where you met the host.

You've earned it.

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

A guy's gotta eat.

And that's getting downright hard if ya live in one of the hundreds of municipalities in Homeless Nation who are shutting down panhandling as a way to bring in the dough.

Harder, if you don't receive any of those checks.

In these parts of Homeless Nation, those checks are called "Crazy Checks." 

"Crazy Checks" because they are mostly Social Security Supplemental checks which are distributed to anybody who can prove to a government clerk and some government doctors that  they are bonkers.

In all fairness, those checks are also distributed to people who have legitimate mental and physical disabilities, but an amazing number of street puppies get those checks because they have been able to prove to those government clerks and government doctors that they are indeed soft in the head, or chemically imbalanced in the head, or just plain ripped all the time on so many pain killers they have a hard time pointing at their own head without sticking their thumb in their eye.

An injury sustained whilst sticking your thumb in your eye does not constitute a physical disability, so don't even think about trying that one at home before you apply for the crazy check.

 Those sharp-eyed government clerks and doctors would spot that one the minute you pointed to the eye with your other thumb.

Now, just about anybody can get food stamps.

All you need to get them is proof that you have no money, and you need to get some money in order to buy sandwiches and stuff as you can't buy hot food with food stamps. 

But, the vast majority of food stamp recipients sell those things for half the amount on their food stamp card every month, and don't use them to eat anyway.

Then they use that money to pay their cell  phone which was turned off due to no funds, or to pay the baby sitter while they are at the local dive filling up on whatever gets them over the funk they get into because they have no money. 

Or to pay off the Mr. Jit who supplies them with rock and oxycodone and vicodin and stuff.

Those  panhandling ordinances which started this whole conversation,  are flying around this country at an amazing rate since people got tired of stepping over hundreds of street puppies all carrying signs telling you way too much information about their personal straits, and that they had left several starving children back in the bushes who were in dire need of cereal, shoes and ski caps.

Some of the street puppies have found ways around those panhandling ordinaces. 

Like, selling bottled water, and roses made from palm tree fronds and toothbrushes.

Now, here's an even better idea for panhandlers if they can't get hold of enough bottled water, or are not artistically inclined enough to make those pretty roses, or have no idea what a tooth brush is anymore.

Treasure maps.

Yup.  Treasure maps.

Sell treasure maps.  Everybody wants something for nothing.  And there's something romantic and mystical about a treasure map, which is a huge plus when you are selling to a gullible pedestrian or motorist who wants something for nothing.

Just draw a map of, oh say, the back alley near where you sleep.  Make it look like it's really an inlet or a bay, preferably near water, that way, it will make it look like the treasure was buried there by pirates a long time ago. 

Now, take that map to a copy place and run off fifty or so.  And then weather the maps by stepping all over them.  Then sleep on them for a night or so out there in your spot. That should do the trick.

They will be nice and moldy looking and smelly like something would be if it had been in somebody's attic for a hundred years with rats and bugs and stuff going to the bathroom on it.

Dress up in something that suggests a pirate's outfit.  Complete with the patch over one eye.  Don't carry a huge knife or sword, the popo will grab you up right away.

Then approach your customers, one on one.  They need to think  they have been singled out for this deal, kind of like those infomercials about the special lotions and face make up which makes everybody look like Angelina Jolie.

And,  armed with the proper peddlers license, which you can buy for a few bucks, you should be able to sell enough of those bad boys to tide you over until you can think of a better way to bring in that extra cash.

Just remember, you will have to hit every corner in town over the course of a few weeks or months, depending on how big your town is.

And another thing, don't even think of going near the spot you used as a model for the treasure spot, when your clients find out they bought a bogus map of a back alley, they'll be looking for you, and you'll really end up needing that eye patch.

Which, actually is ok, too.  Then you could find yourself the actual, legitimate recipient of the government check  for an eye which you can no longer use.