Meet the Neighbors

So, I left my lofty perch atop the Hyatt Regency yesterday (see photo: apparently they go ahead and bump you up to the penthouse if you named your own price on Priceline and you show up to check in after midnight with a few cocktails in you.) To think I didn't bring any chicks home to that palatial estate. For shame. I'm not saying *I* stayed in the room every night, but still... one should take advantage of these things when handed the opportunity. Anyway, I left the friendly confines to head to the Del Taco on Market Street for a little dinner.

It seems to me that the Taco Bells and Del Tacos (Del Taco, actually, since there's only the one) of San Francisco are overpriced. They're more in line with airport pricing or Japan pricing than with actual pricing. Still, I am tickled to be able to go to a Del Taco in San Francisco, particularly one that stays open late, even on weekends when all of downtown is shut down. It certainly adds to the allure of living downtown, and it almost cancels out the detrimental effect of the junkies shooting heroin on the doorstep of said Del Taco. Still, this Del Taco has some wrinkles to iron out. Like working on not running out of lettuce. Seriously, how else am I supposed to get my daily serving of vegetables?

So I'm walking either to or from the Del Taco, I forget which, but it was not too long after the Gay Pride parade finished up on Market Street. The Del Taco trip was the first time I walked down Market Street that day, which is to say I did not participate in the parade. Maybe I'm just not a prideful person, possibly because I heard it is one of the seven deadly sins. Or maybe I'm just not gay, regardless of the fact that the night before I was singing along at a piano bar then went out clubbing where I exchanged several high-fives with a chubby and quite obviously gay man. And by "exchanged several high-fives" I don't mean that we bumped the ends of our man-parts together. Because that would have to read "exchanged several high-three-and-a-halfs."

As I was walking down Market Street I was accosted by an allegedly homeless guy holding a paper cup (possibly a Del Taco cup). He actually looked like he just might have been a straggler from the parade instead of an authentic homeless guy. Here's how the exchange went:

ALLEGEDLY HOMELESS GUY ("AHG"): Hey buddy, can you spare some change?

OSCAR DE LA JOLLA ("ODLJ") shakes his head, says nothing.

AHG: Whatever.

ODLJ: Take care.

AHG: Yeah, fuck you.

Did I do something wrong there? Or was that just "aggressive panhandling" in action? Granted, as a soon-to-be-homeless person myself, I might want to try and curry some homeless guy good karma by contributing, but that's not my thing. It hasn't been my thing since my days at Berkeley, really. I guess if you keep seeing the same guy by the same BART station telling the same story about how his car broke down and how he needs a couple bucks for a tow truck for too many days in a row, you start to get desensitized to the whole thing. I don't think I was being overly sarcastic with my "Take care", I just figured I should say something rather than ignoring the dude completely. And I got a "Fuck you" for my trouble. Normally this sort of thing would have bothered me for awhile, but lately my Give a Crap Meter has gotten a lot less sensitive, and it takes a pretty significant event to register on my radar. So here's my promise to you, dear reader: when I'm living on the streets and you refuse my request for spare change, I promise not to tell you to go fuck yourself - I'll draw the line at telling you to eat a dick and that will be the end of it.