Awkward Encounters With The Homeless

A Series.

Prologue: When it's not cold enough to wear a down, but not warm enough to walk around in a mere hoodie, I rock my hoodie under a leather jacket. I wear this ensemble at some point pretty much every day, because I have no winter clothes.

I emerge from the bowels of the U-Street Cordozo Metro Train Station with a righteous case of movie-head. Movie-head is when your brain goes fuzzy from watching too many movies in a row. Imon and I had just seen In Bruges (the best movie of 2008 thus far), and 30 minutes of Diary of The Dead, the new Romero Zombie Fest which we had to leave early because Imon got scared.

As we ready to cross U street, a homeless man seemingly materializes out of thin air and says "How you doin?" I reply with a tentative hello, a little shocked by the extreme familiarity with which he greets me. And no, it's not cause he was homeless, and I have this policy against conversing with those who make... roughly as much as I do now, but there was something in his eyes that said, "I know you, we're old friends." The only weird thing was, we weren't old friends! I'd never seen this bum before in my life!

After my weak hello, Imon and I begin to cross the street and as we do, we overhear the homeless man say somewhat confidentially to his pal, in reference to me, "THIS guy wears the same outfit every day."

This has been an awkward encounter with the homeless.

Posted by: Hannibal

Photo courtesy of collectingtokens.files.wordpress.com

Awkward Encounters With The Homeless

A Series.

Part of daily life in DC is a series of awkward encounters with the homeless. Awkwardness in basic every day social interactions, is a problem for me anyway, but for some reason when it comes to people asking me for money on the street, I can't seem to ever say or do the right thing.

Take this morning: I'm crossing the street on the way to Starbucks and a toothless woman waiting for the bus asks, "baby, can I borrow 60 cents?" She doesn't look too dirty or anything. I'm certainly not afraid of her or threatened. I just have some place to be and 0 cents in my pocket. Without breaking stride I pleasantly reply, "no, sorry." I take three more steps believing this to have been a successful and courteous refusal, however, one of us has been offended. As I walk away she angrily calls after me; "No, sir? I'm a lady, a female, you can say no ma'am, I ain't no 'sir!'

She had misinterpreted my "no, sorry," as "no, sir." Once again, I have failed. I consider apologetically correcting her error, but instead opt for the old 'pretend you can't hear, and walk faster' escape route of the short skirt wearing girl on her way to the club. Head hung, I enter Starbucks. I've lost my taste for coffee and overpriced generic pastries. My morning: ruined. I buy nothing, leave and enter a nearby computer lab to blog my sorrows away.

This has been an awkward encounter with the homeless.

Posted by: Hannibal
Photo courtesy of collectingtokens.files.wordpress.com