Out & About

The homeless guy wouldn't take a quarter.

I stopped for gas at the 76 station. I won't go to the Shell across the street anymore, my credit card kept getting stolen. Yup, if you inserted it in the pump, they had a stealth program that ripped off the number such that you could not only not get gas, you had to get on the phone with Shell, where they explained the problem and apologized and sent you a new card. After this happened three times, I gave up. Why didn't they just investigate this station?

And I love Shell gas. Don't e-mail me about the company's policies, all I know is it gives my machine a bit more oomph. I mash the pedal and it takes off. And that's the only thing my car is good for, performance, it gets horrible gas mileage. And don't chide me and tell me to trade it in, economically that makes no sense, you see this car is paid for!

So I swipe the card in the pump at the 76 station and I can barely comprehend the read-out, with the sun washing out the LED's, but eventually I get an error message, I've got to see the attendant.

You've got to be kidding! My card number was stolen again? Where am I gonna get gas now? In case you didn't notice, the stations keep closing, the Chevron around the corner turned into a smog stop a decade ago.

So I try again.

Same result.

I move to a different pump, which is a privilege, because normally you can't even get a spot at this station at Cloverfield and the 10, and I get the same message.

So I go inside.

Where the woman in the Miata across the way is complaining about the same thing. And the attendant says "the satellite is down." Mmm... That's how reliant upon technology we've become, you can't even pump gas if the lines are down. But he said it would be back up in a minute and it was and I filled my tank and checked my oil and washed my windows, tasks attendants used to do when gasoline cost less than fifty cents but have now been offloaded to we, the people. We live in a self-serve world. You wonder why we buy on the Internet instead of your store? Because there's no service in your shop, and it takes an eternity to check out after finally finding the item we came looking for.

And having burned more time than I'd planned I decided to stop at Rite-Aid, for some batteries, I was low. And when I pulled into a primo spot I was confronted with a relatively well dressed man carrying a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels. I figured he'd just bought them and was washing his windows.

But no, he wanted to wash mine.

They might have cleaned up New York, but L.A. is struggling. The whole state of California is struggling. Crime is through the roof now that Stockton's gone bankrupt. And can you blame citizens like this windshield wiper, who've got nowhere else to turn, who are down on their luck?

He didn't seem mentally ill. But I'd just washed my windows. So I gave him a quarter.

That's when he told me he wasn't interested in it. He didn't care about quarters. That's a quote.

So I broke out my wallet and pulled out a single and gave it to him. I'd like to say he was thrilled, that he thanked me profusely, but I got little more than a grunt.

And you might think I'm feeling good about myself at this point, doing my part to help society, but I consider it protection money. The last time I didn't give the homeless person money, he threw motor oil all over my car. It's cheaper to pay them off.

But that's what we've come to. For fear of welfare mothers ripping off the system we've got homeless people with initiative blocking our entrance into retail establishments. I always think twice about going to this store. It's in a borderline neighborhood, albeit close to my house.

And I won't stop on Lincoln anymore. After a crook broke the lock on my trunk when I went into Albertsons for some yogurt.

And I know you experience these same quirks of life each and every day. I just wanted to say that I'm with you. That everyday life is a challenge, there are hurdles at each and every step. And it seems like no one's paying attention but us, locked in our own little movies.


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