Why Won't These Jerk Homeless People Give This Cool Cigar Guy All Their Money?

Oh man, aren't poor people the worst? Like, there you are, "working and playing" in ... Indianapolis, sure, why not, just go with it. You are just trying to enjoy a "meal, cigar," and some dirty homeless waif comes up and is like "waaah, good sir, I am so hungry, can you spare a ducat?" And then you are forced to kick them in the face while you laugh and laugh!

Tell us all about it, Abdul-Hakim Shabazz, editor and publisher of IndyPolitics , writing in that liberal rag the Indianapolis Star! 

As someone who works and frequently plays in the Mile Square, I come across panhandlers every day. They include the “physically disabled” woman outside of Starbucks on Monument Circle who manages to haul around a shopping cart full of her stuff, the guy who has been trying to get enough money for gas so he can get his family stuck on the Eastside to Memphis, and the two guys who are “broke and homeless” but talked about their cellphone plans when they didn’t think anyone was listening.

Oh, we get it, you're a pustulent cock.

So, we've got a scarequote physically disabled woman unscarequote, but HOW CAN SHE BE DISABLED if she still manages to live outside, on the street, with a shopping cart???? Hahaha, YA BUSTED LADY! Then there are dudes who are obviously not broke and homeless if they have cell phones, because why don't they just use the payphones that are everywhere, huh? (Also, we don't know if Shabazz has heard this, but Obama gave everyone free cell phones when he timetraveled back to make Ronald Reagan sign the Universal Poor People Telephones Act and then timetraveled forward to make George W. Bush give all black and/or poor people Blackberries to go with their crab legs.)

Let us read more of this nice Shabazz fellow's droll witticisms!

There is nothing more annoying than trying to enjoy a meal, cigar or just some quiet time and have people come up to ask for money. And since the City-County Council Democrats continue to block any meaningful proposal to get these guys off the streets, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I decided to turn the tables on the panhandlers and start asking them for money.

Nothing? NOTHING more annoying? I wonder if we can think of a more annoying thing than having your cigar interrupted by a woman who is able to push a wheeled conveyance full of EVERYTHING SHE OWNS WHICH ALL FITS IN A FUCKING SHOPPING CART? Hmmmm. Nope! Can't think of a one!

Now I had a couple of ground rules. I would not approach anyone who was just holding a sign. Instead, I decided to approach only those panhandlers who either walked up to me and asked for money or solicited cash when I walked by them. And I would ask for money only once it was clear that’s what they wanted.

It was a fantastic experiment.

You know WHAT ELSE was a fantastic experiment? 

On the first day, as I sat on the veranda at Nicky Blaine’s on the Circle having a cigar and cocktail, the first panhandler approached me. He went through the usual spiel and right before he asked for money, I interrupted and asked him for a dollar. His jaw dropped; so I asked again. He told me he didn’t have any money to give, and I told him that makes two of us. He walked away bewildered.

On the second day, I was approached by a young guy who is always on the Circle selling candy. Every day it’s a new organization that he’s selling candy for; unless the line he’s using that day is that he’s selling the candy to pay for summer classes at college.

As I walked by, he asked if I had money to buy candy. I told him I didn’t, but could he float me a couple of bucks so I could get lunch? He told me he didn’t have any money. I told him that he must be a horrible salesman to have been out on the Circle all day selling candy and not have any money.

So now Shabazz has a problem with capitalism? Because we are pretty sure offering a "product" in exchange for "money" is not begging? That's weird, right?

That story repeated itself, no matter how many times I asked panhandlers for money. The answer was always no. One even went so far as to curse me out. He sounded like something out of an old Redd Foxx comedy bit.

Your mom is out of an old Redd Foxx comedy bit.

What fascinated me the most was the fact that people who spend all day begging others for money had the nerve to get mad when someone did it to them. So maybe that’s the way we should deal with Indy’s panhandling problem: simply ask them for money.

Maybe they’ll get tired of us panhandling and then they will avoid Downtown so the rest of us can enjoy it. Just a thought. By the way, you got a dollar you can spare?

That is some funny, funny stuff. But hidden beneath the japery is a very true point, and that point is that fuck everyone Shabazz got his. We would hate to suggest we are a better person than Mr. Shabazz, except for how we are absolutely a better person than Mr. Shabazz by about five miles, because we are not actually offended by people asking us for help so they do not die. In fact, we do this thing, because we are a pussy lib who is better than Mr. Shabazz, where when we are about to go out and spend all your money on some sweet fuckin' sushi (we do that a lot), we sort of tithe what we are about to spend on hamachi and kanpachi and all the Sapporos, and spread some green around on the street. And if no homeless people come up to us and ask us for money on the way to the sushi joint, we FIND A HOMELESS and ask them if they could use some help. Usually, they say yes! Usually, we don't even get a candy bar out of it! But what we do get is to live in an apartment, with all our stuff in one place -- a place that does not have wheels on the bottom of it -- and we get to not live with the burden of being Abdul-Hakim Shabazz. Because really that's got to suck.

[ IndyStar via wonket operative "Kyle"]