For Whom The Toll Begs

Another most excellent post from our regular contributor, The YB of the SC.

When my lovely wife came to work with me almost seven years ago one of her conditions was that I could no longer eat lunch every day at the same coffee shop, at least not if I ever expected her to join me for lunch. She didn’t care that this wasn’t just any old coffee shop. This was one of a chain of coffee shops that had its beginnings back in the late 60’s. This was the coffee shop that gave me my first real job back in 1973. I baked rolls from scratch for the restaurant as well as made their tuna fish salad. Is it any wonder that I became addicted to their menu? Can you blame me for lusting after their lemon meringue pie?

For seven years I have willingly cooperated with the lovely wife. She has introduced me to wonderful fare offered by Nordstrom's Café, Mexican fast food, Olive Garden, and California Pizza Kitchen to name just a few. She doesn’t work on Fridays. Every Friday it’s back to the coffee shop for the “usual.”

For several months now we have run into a small annoyance in the person of a beggar. A beggar in a wheelchair. This gentleman has taken up residence across the street from our building on the corner where he can command the attention of a very busy street loaded with traffic as well as a wonderful sidewalk loaded with foot traffic. He has a fishnet on a long pole which he uses to collect cash from the windows of passing cars. We don’t have to pass by this beggar when we go to the coffee shop but he does sit on the superior route to our other food choices.

When we have walked past his wheelchair I have often reached into my wallet and handed him a dollar. Other times we have simply walked by and said hello and he has offered up a, “God bless you,” which in the world of begging I have come to interpret as, “You miserly piece of something really horrible.”

We have developed a habit of no longer crossing the street toward the man in the chair, but rather using the sidewalk opposite this beggar person and then crossing over to our version of restaurant row at the next signal some 100 yards down the road. His fishnet on a pole is not capable of reaching across 8 lanes of traffic. What prompted me to write this story is the fact that we are now electing to walk past a major construction site which is slowly but surely choking off our alternate sidewalk route with the likes of sandbags, hoses, temporary fences and many other hazards which on occasion cause me to protect the lovely wife from certain death by my taking a few steps into the street hoping that the traffic notices me more than they notice the man in the wheel chair across the street.

Now that I have written this story and realized how stupid the whole matter is I will go back to the better, safer side of the street and simply pay the darn $1.00 toll. It will be worth it as the bulldozers are starting to get too close to the sandbags.