While strolling along 4th Avenue yesterday, I came across this paperbox. I’d heard the newspaper world has been turned upside down recently, but this is ridiculous.
I asked the nice bookie lady at the Rialto horse parlor what had happened. She wasn’t sure why, but it happened sometime during the overnight hours. A wacky attempt at humor? I doubt it.
Strictly guessing, I’d bet it was a pack of street thugs looking for money. PBR makes you STRONG! (Pitbull needs food. Anything helps.) Tipping the newsbox upside down and shaking it until the change falls out sounds like drunken fun at 4 AM, unless you own the paperbox. That would be my hypothesis.
If you’ve spent much time downtown, you’ve probably at some point had to look for change, to feed the bus or a parking meter. While some merchants are tight, most don’t mind parting with a buck or two in quarters. It’s good for business, and more often than not folks end up buying something anyway. It’s much better than being remembered as “that assh*le that wouldn’t give me change for a dollar.”
There’s a flip side: Those “spangers” that scrounge, whine and wheedle anything that jingles from you need a place to cash out. (Dope dealers do NOT take coins.) Merchants deal with this practically: Spend all the coin you want, but they don’t want to buy your pocket change. Becoming a de facto piggy bank is not why folks opened a business. Getting indignant because merchants don’t want to facilitate a drug deal will get you nowhere, kids. Take it to CoinStar. 8% is cheap, especially since all you did was draw a cardboard sign. Or rob a pay phone/newspaper box/vending machine.
Later in the night, as I walked past the MAX tracks, a teenage girl yelled at me from half a block away. Common sense and world-wisdom tells me that middle-aged men and teenage girls meeting on the street after midnight seldom mean good things, so I ignored her. After the fifth “Excuse me!” I turned and said, “What?”
“Would you have any part of a dollar you can spare?”
“NO!” While I didn’t violate a noise ordinance, I did hear it echo off a building.
“Well, you don’t have to be an asshole about it,” she said.
“Apparently I do. Ignoring you the previous four times you asked didn’t register, did it?”
“Whatever.” She turned away. “Hey, got a dollar? I’ll give you a nugget!” She’d refocused on a group of kids who were insulting a homeless man walking by. They began yelling insults at each other, and I put as much space between them as possible.
What the hell is a nugget?
{ 4 comments }
A nugget is a douchebag who ignores people.
This must be a new tactic they’re using. I got called an asshole for not giving money twice this weekend.
…a “nugget”? i dread to think.
I took all my coins to my bank one day. Although the lady behind the counter wasn’t best pleased(!) I cashed in £250 – almost $500 at the time? – without this 8% agio you refer to.
coins do add up !
It’s because they’ve announced distribution by email. God is angry.
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