Derailed Sufficiently Enough

Yesterday I walked to the food pantry ten blocks downtown in the rain, only to find it closed for that day alone.

What the fucking kind of rat-luck is that shit? I'm standing there. There's a sign that reads "Closed Today". Shit, I'm only allowed to go once a month, and the one time I decide to come out here, it's fucking closed. So, I went home and polished my cabinets for dinner. Quite filling, you know. I hate my head drugs, because they somehow keep weight on me. I eat, but not entirely all that much. I fast too. Well not voluntarily but if I keep saying that I'm doing it because I want to it'll soon become true.

But I still gain weight. I don't drink sodas, but  I love Iced Tea. Ahhhh. I can drink my weight in iced tea. But I can't afford to drink iced tea much. That's a luxury item, and a whole other story. The next day, it's still fucking raining in the city. That's just perfect. And the wind was completely kick ass. For the first time I took out my little umbrella against what was more mist than rain, but I was so pissed off that I brought the damn umbrella for mist, I opened it anyway. Well, Mr. Mean-assed Wind literally took my umbrella and crumpled that shit up like a paper ball. Disgusted, because I should have kept the thing closed, I threw it into the nearest garbage can.

Imme- diately after that, the mist turned into rain, which turned into downpour. Yep, Mr Mean- assed Wind hates me. I got to the Food Pantry drenched and I wait on a line that's grown annoying to me. It's the mentality that the homeless have to deal with day in and day out. Here, this is what I am talking about. You go to a supermarket, gather groceries and then wait on a long checkout line for what seems hours. The line is moving but awfully so. So you walk up to the cashier and notice that she's having these long, drawn out conversations with all of her friends on the line when they reach her.

What's the first thing that you do? Well, you cuss her and go to the manager and complain that this cashier thinks she's a civil servant and can jack off all day. The manager, not getting his money's worth from his employee, storms downstairs and berates the cashier, getting her to get the line moving. You see, this happens to you guys in the real world. There is a certain quality of service. But in the alternate universe of the homeless and unemployed, what you have is a much different dynamic. The dynamic of apathy.

Nobody cares. No, not really. The govern- ment run soup kitchens are very similar to jails, and their workers are like correctional officers. They don't give a shit about you, and if you have a problem with that, they will deny you services, like coming in through the front door to sleep in a chair overnight. Sorry gang, you think this country loves you? Then stay a productive part of it, because once you're derailed sufficiently enough they'll kill you rather than aid you. I can't wait until the homeless genocide sweepstakes where the city police officers and people who can afford the five dollar registration fee, hold a sweepstakes where every day they hunt down, kill and skin a homeless person just to thin out the population.

You think it's not coming do you? Don't become homeless and unem- ployed. But back to the apathy, which is quite sad because it's a revolving door. It's so sad, because it is sad. Volunteers who really want to help the homeless, they want to help their fellowman, have to deal with Skeksies. When this Society starts to kill the homeless for sport, I hope they start with the Skeks. They are the most inconsiderate, ungrateful, arrogant, mean, devious, selfish, crafty, dirty, filthy, irredeemable people on Earth. You stare at them in shock and awe because you cannot believe that a person can behave in the manner that they do.

They will completely stun and amaze you. But if you're homeless, you grow inured to it. If you're a volunteer, the same. But where once a volunteer helped you with a smile, because of their constant coming into contact with Skeks, all they can soon feel is apathy. These people that they are trying to help are not worth dispensing the milk of human kindness. They grow dim. They grow apathetic. Do I blame them. Hell no, I'm numb inside like them.

I hate to say this, but you don't know how cold they can make your heart, and I would think twice if I saw one hit by a car, if I should help them or not. And if I met  them already today, I can  pretty much tell you that if seeing that person later hit by a car, I would think god was leveling a deserved punishment on him. That's how coarse and unforgivable they can make themselves in your eyes. With this being said, I stood on a grocery line today while the woman serving it had to have a half hour conversation with every 'friend' she found on the line. When I came in before her, I was in and out in a minute.

I should have found her cup of coffee and pissed in it. But then again, do I blame her for treating everyone so disre- spectfully? No, because there were Skeks in front and behind me. Her day was just beginning to turn into a trial. But I would have pissed in her cup of coffee anyway, only because I haven't done that shit to someone in a long, long time! So, then I went into the food pantry and used my points to 'purchase' foodstuffs for the week, and today they had a pretty good selection of food, except for meats. None but those horrible pre-cooked patties. They just say 'meat patties' and they are all frozen in this big, plastic potato sack. It's probably rat or cockroach meat. I had two or three of them, and tried to mask their strange flavor with everything, from tons ketchup, salt, hot sauce, to RAID and swamp gasses. That taste was still too strong to swallow. I ended up throwing them out.

So I had one point, and I didn't want a huge bag of 'SMEAT' So I went over to the fish. Now here, they have cans of tuna. Nice. One point gets you how many cans? The clerk looks at me with a pretty set of blue eyes, "One." I nod. So angeleyes, let me get this right. I can get five pounds of SMEAT, the mystery meat for a point, but only one can of something clearly marked as 'tuna' by a manufacturer on it? "That's correct," she says. I look over her shoulder. Oh look! They have tins of sardines. They are great for the heart. I turn back to her, well how many tins of sardines can I get for a point? "One."

I was beginning to see that speaking to her was a lost cause. They wanted to unload the mystery meat as quickly as humanly possible. Adherence to strict health codes? In the basement of an old church? I think not. I opted for the can of tuna. Then I had to contend with Skek women cutting the line in front of me to the checkout as if I wasn't even there. What's that about? I mean they walk up and push my groceries aside and pile theirs up before mine. I thought that maybe the checkout person or the clerks would say something to keep me from having to address a Skek as to proper manners, but no. Like I said, apathy. They just stared at the Skeks, with eyes at half mast, and flat affect.

Suddenly, I did the same. I went into what I will now call, the Skeksie Stare. It's that point where your hyperactive child's antics finally get the best of you. Or when the car breaks down and strands your ass in the middle of nowhere, and all the working on it cannot get it to move. You just give up abjectly. I think I just slipped into a trance then. The same trance that I see in Social Worker's faces, volunteer's faces. They have their own brand of 'Thousand Yard Stare'. I must have left with it too.

I made my way home, grateful to be back in my safe and cozy world, my room. I turned on my computer and my daily calendar popped up and right on top it notified me that today was my Nine O'clock Mandatory Appointment for Public Assistance at Social Services. I look at the clock on the microwave with my Thousand Yard Stare...Ten Thirty. This was the make or break appointment, the one that I had to reschedule because they sent me the appointment letter a day late. Now I fucked up and missed it myself. I'm certain by now they've cancel by benefits. Oh well. Apathy settles in.

Who the fuck needs food, shelter and meds anyway?

Hobobob