Skip to main content

The homeless man

As I drove towards the Starbucks a place of caffeine and wifi joy, but yet tainted with the dread of homework, I kept thinking of my grumbling stomach. Long ago I realized that I am a premadonna study person.  This means that I cannot concentrate on anything worth a cent, unless the coffee was just right, the lighting, the wifi speed, and the body felt comfortable.  needless to say that this is probably is all a subconcious way ton deal with my constant lack of attention and disinterest in anything to do with business school.  So there I was sitting in the long after-work line at the local Subway.  It was feature packed with the over-judgmental elderly folks, the volleyball girls with dangerously low cut shorts, which seem to be the focus of the elderly men.  The poor mother trying to corral her cat-on-crack (AKA kid) ;  to whom I totally I could relate to.   The cougar with her skin tight clothes, her caramel shiny skin, and bleached hair, and her iPhone with her head yammering away, ordering in between her important retorts.
there I was trying to think of Jarod, and wondering if I could ever lose that weight, trying to decide between the artery exploding meatball on white or the ham on wheat... Chosen the latter so my wife will still look at me.
Then suddenly there comes in a man in his 50's and to look at him, was to know homelessness. I could see everyone stopnand tense and look sternly at him.  He had a haircut like a mad scientist, with lush white curly heair separating a sweaty shiny roadway separating the two sides of his head. A crooked smile with old missing teeth, but one that showed true warmth and honesty somehow.  His pants barely together, and old pair of levis and a splothced old t-shirt.  He was not altogether, as you noticed from his up and down bounce walk and his long drawl "heeeellloo" and then smiled away.  
As I finished my order, he stood mesmerized by the impossible choices offered at this fine establishment. I could see the goth girl attendant lose her all her little patience and say "well... You gonna order something?" he was starled and backed away, but then to my surprise he was able to comeback withnan answer. He rubbed his hair and stood very impatiently. He seemed agitated... I then left...
To my surprise a few minutes later, he walked into the Starbucks and ran into the bathroom and pulled out his hidden belongings inna raggedy old shopping cloth  bag.  He proceeds to sit down near me and pulls out a mp3 player that was no iPod, most probably off the checkout rack at your local walgreens. He finished his sandwich and then proceeded to dance around all the tables singing an indescribable song... But what I was in his face was true happiness. He had his free water was able to eat his kid size sandwich, and have a concert in his mind.  As I looked on, I realized that my cash, credit cards, mocha, tablet, laptop, iPhone, etc... Did not count for much in this guys eyes. I saw true happiness, in a life that I am sure is filled with despair.  If he can manage a crooked smile, then there is no excuse for the rest of us. :-)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Add'ness and lack of reflection

Thinking about it today. I came to realize that my inherent ADDness does not only come genetically passed down. Or created due to my repetitive 20 year work as an IT professional, but it is what creative intellectuals do to cope with the inherent lack of creative challenges. There are those who create and those who consume. I fortunately or unfortunately am the creative type and sometimes my work does provide a challenge that requires my creative thinking, but most often than not it only offers repetitive mundane yaks that must be stamped out. So in the meantime the brain creates problems or attention getters that really do not need attention at all, like keeping up with the news or Facebook. These are subconsciously implanted as tasks to be completed to make the brain perceive that it has more to do than what is really present. Over time this becomes the nor and things like this be one the norm at home too. You try to sit patiently and listen through your Childs story and you catch y

Productive Day

Enjoying a productive day studying business communications and Human Relationship Management. Sat at Scooter's Coffee and really enjoyed the atmospehere, although the lack of the famous Totty coffee. Had a wonderful family lunch with my kids and wife eating Tropical Smoothy Cafe food. Decided to be a good son and water my mother's garden. As I turned on the hose I worried a little about the water consumption regulations, but I was quicly at ease at looking at how long there poor plants had gone without water, and watered away. The ADD'ness of the NET is wearing off more now and learning to read at least 3 pages without checking gmail and facebook!! Reading books is such a cool concept, I am sad that the Internet multitasking overloadingness is slowly training people to consume at max speed and not enjoy content. Less can me much more gratifiying than more.....

Canva AI generated drawing of a blind grandma and granddaughter in a post apocalyptic world

​ The blind wise grandmother with the granddaughter must survive this post apocalyptic future. From the Canva App