Sorry man, I don't have any change

This is a line I'm forced say far too often. 

But first, a little prologue.

My daily routine proceeds as follows: Wake up, gussy myself up to appear at least as presentable as a side of mashed potatoes (with the lumps, of course), and make my way to Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe*.

Now, whilst sitting outside of YOCS I do a number of different things, though keeping myself abreast of the previous day's sporting news and whomping the Orlando Sentinel crossword are constant. Keeping this in mind, note that both aforementioned activities require me to keep my head down, poring over whatever might be laid flat on the table before me. This has sparked the development of a new, uh, 6th sense**?

With eyes fixed downward, my ears have reluctantly been trained to hear the difference between the purposeful footsteps of those who work for a living and are traveling to a specific destination, and the aimless, shuffle-footed shambling of the homeless.  In reference to the latter, my attention remains on the piece of paper in front of me, because to make eye-contact with a bum is to invite said bum to approach me.  However, this action (or inaction, as it were) is only mildly effective.  These human turkey buzzards still saunter up, and will open with variety of lines, ranging from, "Excuse me sir, I'm an artist and poet.  If you could spare some change, I'd be happy to recite a few lines of poetry for you" to "Yo man, gimme a cigarette".

I feel that the homeless hold my time hostage, heartily heaving wholesale shamelessness in my direction.  One cigarette is a small ransom to pay in order to be left alone.  Though as the day progresses, this presents a problem; I end up giving out way too many smokes.

I'm not so near-sighted as to believe I've invented the way to handle this, but I suppose I could say I independently discovered a solution: the decoy pack.  Simply keep your full pack of smokes in your pocket, and an empty pack on the table.  This nullifies any request in that you open the decoy pack and say something to effect of "Sorry dude, last one".  But, as we all know, some people just won't take no for an answer.

This is when I feel my strongest urges to kill.  And not just the easy bing bang boom GSW to the ol' noodle, but a really rewarding murder.  Something like shattering your quarry's jaw and hands, then plopping him in front of a buffet.  This way you can watch as the fucker fruitlessly tries, amid the worst pain of his life, to sustain himself.  Oh, the satisfaction of seeing a vagrant starve to death with tuna salad dripping off of his fractured mandible.

Wow.  Reading what I just wrote, I think I need to stop and chill out.  Uhhh, just kidding?

     

*The actual name of the the coffee shop will go unspecified, as I'm not being paid to advertise. Henceforth it shall be referred to as YOCS.

**Maybe not a whole sense, per se, as it requires the use of the other, more commonly accepted senses. Lets call it my 5 and 3/8ths sense.