It was midnight, January 18, the last day of food stamps in the ghetto. Thinking it would now be safe to go shopping late at night—with food stamp traffic tapering off sharply on the last day of largesse, and the alcoholics and drug addicts not yet panhandling in force—I had made my way to Shop & Beg. I did so on the advice of Cheap Guys R’ Us Customer Service Manager Miss Ezz, who assured me, “That Mexican chick and her cardboard baby-picture sign will be off the corner for a week now. She’ll be back though, as soon as she blows through those stamps. The losers should all be stuffing their guts with steamed shrimp and pop tarts—so if ever there was a time to go shopping it is right after the eighteenth.”

As Fate would have it—and I think Fate now resides in a cardboard box behind an inner city bakery—many early food stamp recipients, who received their monthly dole between the 6th and the 10th were on hand, and I found myself stacked up behind them at the lone midnight register as they dug for change in their pockets and recounted the wadded up bills in their hands.

First was the female dope fiend, covered in tattoos and wearing a wife-beater and dirty sweatpants that had no seat over the left cheek, which was not sealed with antimicrobial panties as it should have been. She was perhaps 35, though it is hard to tell with addicts. I think she was a crack-head. She was shopping with three men in their twenties who had to pool their money to purchase their Honey Nut Cheerios and 48 ounce jug of fake orange juice.

This left no money for mamma’s cigarettes, so she got on the federal cell phone and began hitting up a fourth male for ‘change’, with the following woeful plea, “I be broked yo. Ya needz ta front me some change.”

The young men left, but she hung around on the sidewalk awaiting a car…

In the mean time ‘Our House’ the two middle-aged white trashians who are recovering meth-heads but still spend most of their time drunk, including this night, were bickering in line about the grocery bill, which consisted primarily of canned cat food. As another man hovered near by curiously the half of the duo who still had human looking skin started threatening us with the possible ramifications of his not being able to pay the bill, “Somebody needs to help with this cat food bill. I have eleven cats en if I can’t feed them I’m goin’ to set them loose on the neighborhood!”

The newcomer rifled through his pockets and spoke up, “Here yah go—we used ta do meth under the bridge.”

Meanwhile the crack-ho had been picked up by a car out front.

By the time these stumblebums had completed their transaction and related stoner gossip, which consisted of talking about the late 1980s as if it were last week, I was finally on cue to have my chocolate milk rung up. The cashier winked at me and nodded to the departing stoners, “Friends of yours?”

“No man.”

He then scanned the milk and considered the happy looking cow on the bottle, “Is this your favorite; you get this a lot.”

“Oh it tastes pretty good. The reason I prefer this brand though is the comforting notice on the side of the bottle that assures me that there is no measurable nutritional difference between organic milk and milk from cows treated with hormones—I’m in training, ‘roiding’ up you might say.”

“Oookaaayyy,” he said as he bagged my milk and made change.

Just then, as he was wishing me good night, the crack-ho returned with a handful of mashed up ones, looking more haggard still, “I gotz yo baby; we flush now. I’ll take da Newport Filta Kings…’

…and out the door I went.

I am giving Harm City tours for visiting dignitaries if you are interested.