I just received a call from an Estrogen Alliance ghetto grocer who took me to task for not being hard enough on panhandlers! Imagine that, LaFond the Losertarian...
The call was rushed and she was ‘fired up’ over my glorification of the pregnant panhandler in Panhandler Nation #5. So here are the bits and pieces of her neoconservative rant as best I could scribble them down.
“I was a liberal until my forties. But by the time I hit forty I was looking around and saying to myself, ‘Check this out, there is something wrong with this.’
“I wasn’t a Christian but I was a bleeding heart. I would have been one of those people pulling over on the interstate ramp and rolling down their window to give money to the crack-heads. The Mexican chick on Thirty-third and Hillen really burns me up; there every day like it’s her job! This loser has a cardboard sign with pictures of her five kids on it. Now that’s a lot of sex—where is he at? ‘Not now! This isn’t the time sister.’
“I keep my window up and shake my head. I’ll only roll it down to say ‘Get a job!’
“‘You’re hitting me up at the wrong time sister. The government is already giving you this and that, and the other thing out of my pocket, and you are going to double-dip on me! Not only double-dip on me but lie to me! Besides, you’re hitting me up on my way home from Purgatory, buried in ghetto bullshit; and I just want to get home—away from this hellhole!’
“Now, the Beer Guy, with the beer sign. He’s honest. I’ll give money to him. Besides, all he has is AA; he’s not on a methadone program. Even the crack-head, if he paints a sign ‘need money for crack’ I’ll give to him. Sure, he’s double-dipping but at least he’s not lying to make me feel guilty for his bullshit.
“Back in the day I was the girl that would give out change. Now I’m the mean old lady that they right songs about for not caring. I’m scraping by and I’m supposed to help an addict buy drugs! Please. One day I might get my window cracked for saying, ‘Get a job sister’, but then it’s on! Maybe I’ll get the homeless shelter [phone] number and put it on my windshield next to my own ‘Get a job!’ Sign.
“I’m slaving away in the ghetto here, putting up with all of this shit, and I’m supposed to pay your way—it ain’t happenin’ sista. En ya know that’s right!”
“I finished the conversation by noting an old truism, ‘That people who are conservative before thirty-five are heartless, and those who are liberal after thirty-five are stupid.’
In response Miss Ezz said, “Now that makes me feel a little better. I wasn’t a heartless bitch then and I’m not a bimbo now.”
