Chinese Rice Cake

Ten fifty-four in the morning and I’m hungry as balls. I woke my ass up early for an 8:00 meeting and finally made it back to the office just so I could write my follow up e-mails.

My stomach was about to eat itself.

So the building next to mine has a little snack shop with those really awesome Chinese rice cakes; the spongy kind, not the layer ones. Well, I walk in, buy my food, and walk out—into the equator-bright sunlight.

I round the corner and SMASH my shin into the concrete bench. It hurt like a bitch. The bench was the same material as the concrete floor and in my squinty-eyeness I didn’t see it. I hobble along like someone with blood flowing down his shin and try to look like I didn’t actually leave an inch patch of skin back there.

Lo and behold a homeless man was lying down at the bus stop no less than 15 feet from where my skin was still sticking to the concrete bench. He looks at me. I look at him. He looks at me.

I say, “Look out for that corner, it’ll hack you up.” and walk by.

As I get about 40 feet away, I hear yelling in an accent best described as a combination of Indian, Filipino, and Daffy Duck; the homeless man is yelling at me.

I--being more curious than smart--walk back to him.

He starts yelling at me more in his Indian-Filipino-Daffy Duck accent, but then he pulls out some sort of French attitude.

From what I could tell, he said, “This is my bench, I can lie here, do you have a problem?”

I yell back “I give you permission to lie down on that bench!” And he gets EVEN more pissed.

Realizing that getting into a brawl with a homeless man during the 5 minutes I snuck out to get a snack wouldn’t look good on my dossier, I casually walk back. He then comes running after me.

At this point, I really want to just kick his ass. He may have 50 pound on me, but I have health, youth, and nutrition. . . . but alas I didn’t.

I wussed out, ran into my building, hit the elevator, and escaped.

I think the moral of the story is don’t talk to crazy homeless people, but I could be mistaken.