From the Brow of Zeus

"I need ninety cents. I'd like to trade you for something. Like a business deal."

And being a nice guy, I automatically fish around in my pocket for loose change.

The man, dressed in a black leather jacket, John Lennon glasses and a thick coating of dust, continues: "I'm going to be walking to [a town about 14 miles north of here]. So if you see me, honk and wave at me."

"I sure will," I say, and hand him a dime and a quarter. "It's all I have," I say apologetically.

The biker-bum glances at the change then glares at me in disgust. "I meant like a business deal."

I stare out at the open field next to K-Mart, wrecking my brain for something random I could buy from a leather-clad hobo for less than a dollar. Some stink, perhaps, or a dead thing he'd picked up along the way.

"Forget about it," he says, cheering up. "Have a nice day."

Now, here's what I should have done: I should have asked for a 90 cent dance. Yeah, a bum dance, sort of like the kind of thing a cowboy would shoot out of you, only instead of bullets I'd be lobbing pennies and dimes at his feet until the $0.90 had piled up. Then when he got tired, I would have shouted, "More! More! I want my bum-dance! You have to really earn it, man! This is a business deal!"

Or, you know, he could have just accepted the pocket change and dropped the power-yuppie hobo act.

90 cent business deal my ass.

Labels: misc

This is a test. This is only a test. Had it been an actual post, I woulda said something interesting.