The Pickiest Hobo
A long time ago, in a call centre far far away...

Back in my heyday I used to be a high-rolling, go-getting, world-is-my-oyster type of bloke, and as was befitting of a lad with my insatiable appetite for success, I had scaled the woozy heights of the corporate ladder and commanded a position in the “Contact Centre” of a household insurance company.

There isn’t space on the entire internet for me to fully vent spleen on the enduring fuckwittery of call centre employment, so I’ll stick to the point, which is that like every call centre on God’s green Earth, we were required to turn up in business attire in order to foster the illusion that we had real jobs, and yet were paid about a fifth as much as the bloke who cleaned the toilets after our allotted (and carefully monitored) 15 minutes of daily “bathroom time”.

‘Picky’ wasn’t an option. On good days, a plate of chips from the cafeteria would cost 50p. On really good days, and if they liked you, the lunch ladies would chuck a bit of gravy on there for free (never underestimate the maternal instincts of a forty-something dinner lady when faced with a starving and lost-looking 21-year-old boy in a cheap suit). On bad days, the coffee machine also dispensed powdered soup.

Only on pay day did we truly feel like kings, because we got to venture to the netherworld outside of the call centre, mix with the Outside Folk, and buy lunch at the McD*n*lds in the prefab 60’s mess of a shopping centre next door. It was also the only time of the month that the transient gentleman who slept in their doorway would bother to pester us for loose change. I suppose he figured (correctly) that any other week he’d be wasting his time because, despite the suits, his dog ate better than we did.

Then one month a miracle occurred. The stars aligned, and For A Limited Time Only, McD*n*lds were offering two B*g M*cs for the price of one. And lo, call centre staff from all the tribes of the Earth did rejoice, and great was their joy. For not only could we afford a meat-style, mostly non-toxic lunch for the first time in four weeks, but we got another one thrown in absolutely gratis.

Obviously the jubilation lasted about 24 hours. I mean, have you ever actually tried to eat two B*g M*cs? It’s impossible. Even the most impoverished phone gibbon can only really make it about half way through the second before realising just how fucking awful they are. Which leads me at long last to the point…

Upon approaching the aforementioned imitation-beef franchise, and upon being approached in turn by aforementioned gentleman of the road, I hit upon an idea. I'd politely refused his request for surplus coinage, partly because I didn’t have any, and partly because the concept of ‘spare money’ seemed so alien as to be faintly ludicrous, but instead I offered him my spare B*g M*c, which, to my stunned incredulity, he declined.

I have nothing but sympathy for the homeless, and if he’d said something along the lines of “Actually mate, I’ve had all the spare B*g M*cs I can comfortably handle in one day, and now I’m trying to scrape together a couple of quid to get me drunk enough to forget, just for a few hours, that I live under a flyover and keep all my worldly possessions in carrier bags”, I’d have perhaps understood. But no…

The reason my attempted charity was so unceremoniously snubbed? He fixed me with an expression that normal people reserve for Conservative politicians, and that, coincidentally, Conservative politicians usually reserve for the homeless, and sneered the immortal response:

“I’m a vegetarian”.

Jesus H. tap-dancing Christ , a vegetarian tramp. Fuck me, that’s picky.
(Monkey Tennis isn't Spartacus, Fri 2 Mar 2007, 13:45, Reply)