Nimby, California

I don't usually engage in much small talk at work with the customers. I do enough not to be rude and because I try to be a nice guy and I'm not deliberately obnoxious. I admit to not being very nice when I shut a grifter down. Who could possibly purchase 10 bottles of laundry soap week after week by accident and then try to return it the following week without a receipt when it is no longer on a 2-for-1 sale? I have no patience for that type of stuff.

It could be my upbringing making me sensitive to matters of ethics, humanity, morality and human rights but usually when I get into a prolonged conversation with someone it invariably turns bad and I recall why I don't really care to spend my time yammering with the locals.

My chats usually have negative results and make me want to go home and shower. For example, this conversation I had with a customer the night before Halloween.

"Looks like you are getting enough candy today."

"Yes! Halloween is so busy for us."

"Really? Where is that?"

"Bird Rock area. Honestly, I think they bus people in."

"How so?"

"We get hundreds of visitors on our street on Halloween and you can tell they don't live there. It's a nice neighborhood and everyone is really generous. So it stays pretty busy until the patrols start at about 9 and clears them out."

"The patrols?"

"Private security patrols. Between the patrols all over the area and us manning the fire hoses we keep everything under control."

"Fire hoses..."

"Hee hee!"

"I...see. Well, you have a wonderful Halloween."

People are a continual disappointment to me.

Hobo in La Jolla - Supervillain Update

This is Cliff.

Say "Hi" to Cliff everyone!

I know his name because last month Cliff, in a drunken tantrum, shortly after being ejected from an adjacent property by the police for throwing a drunken tantrum*, randomly attacked and vandalized a car in the parking lot.

My car.

Cliff went to jail for the act but now he is once again free and wandering around the area having more drunken tantrums. He seems to have some problem with the concept of staying off staying off the property and keeping away from the customers, so I foresee more legal problems for Cliff in the near future.

I'm thinking of getting Cliff registered with the Guild of Calamitous Intent. Cliff easily qualifies as a supervillain. A semi-normal person until he drinks his special chemical formula, Cliff transforms into a feral, screaming psycho who engages in random property damage and mayhem which continues until a specialized team of heroes takes him out of action with their high-tech weapons and tactics. That's classic comic book stuff. Cliff also has the identity-concealing costume down, but he needs a proper supervillain moniker. Perhaps something like The Rampaging Imbiber or The Screaming Jerk-Face.

* Or as the police officer called it, "Acting like Cliff".

Hobos in La Jolla: The Movie

Some say that years ago he used to be a fashion model. Take away the years of self-abuse and one could see from his build and bone structure that in his younger days it could have been possible that once he made hearts beat faster from interest whereas now it would be from the fear of being accosted.

He was discovered drunk and barely conscious in a loading dock driveway, empty beer cans nearby. When someone asked him to move out of the driveway so a delivery truck could pull into the loading dock he started screaming and crying. He said he has AIDS. He said he is having a seizure. He said "If I could get up I would knock you in the head." He said he can't walk. This was probably a new development because the last time I saw him he was running at high speed out the door of a grocery store after shoplifting a chicken and several bottles of alcohol. He begged for an ambulance. In spite of the threat of violence (or because of it) someone called the police and paramedics to assist him. His journey from walking a runway to crawling in the street could be an interesting and cautionary tale.