The other night I was watching a special on Dateline about the homeless youth in Portland, Oregon. Portland is like a Mecca for troubled teens who want to leave their homes and live on the streets. They come from all over the nation, coast to coast, and flock to Portland. Wow, Portland. Oddly enough, Portland also has the largest heroin consumption per capita. Coincidence?

Homeless teens in Portland spend the day panhandling. With their hard earned change they go buy things like snacks, cigarettes, booze, heroin, as well as clothing and hair dye products from Hot Topic. One of the things that struck me as odd.... actually it down right pissed me off, was an interview conducted with a homeless 18 year old girl, who came to Oregon from Missouri because her parents wanted her to get a job, so she decided she would rather not have a job and panhandle in Oregon instead. She stated in the interview, "These yuppies that walk back and forth on the street everyday are just brainwashed by society. I don't want a job because I don't want to be brainwashed like them. One of the things that makes me the most angry is when someone tells me to get a job when I ask them for change." I can't think of anything BUT the contrary. Girl, I think YOU are the one who has been brainwashed from all of your years of listening to shitty bands like TOOL. She's a bottom feeding piece of shit. So she's going to sit on a corner, hating people who work, and then ask those same people for money. You want to get paid for being an eyesore on a street corner? I'm sure that would be everybody's dream job, getting something for nothing, but there's no job out there that matches that description.

There are plenty of opportunities to find work. The last time I checked, all the help wanted ads in the paper were not blank pages. You could start by going home, apologizing to your parents for being a shit, take a shower, put on some decent clothes, something that doesn't smell like homeless and without a band logo on it, and go out and apply for jobs. Make yourself useful.

So the other day I was working, and this bum who smelled like beer came up to me when I was smoking and asked, "Sir, can you spare any change? I need to get on the bus to go to work and I don't have any money." If he actually had a job, he would have been able to afford a $1.50 bus ride. If he didn't have a job, he would have used the $1.50 that I gave him to run nextdoor to the QFC to get a 40oz Old English. Which do you think is more likely? I'll give you a hint, he smelled like he had already "borrowed bus money" from several people that day.

I work for an electronics store. That means we have some expensive products that are high demand. So there is the opportunity. 2 blocks down the road is a homeless park, and right across the street is a pawn shop. There is the means and motive. We are an electronics retailer, flanked by a homeless park and a pawn shop, and behind our location is a shitmaze of sidestreets, backroads and trails. If that doesn't sound like a recipe for disaster, I don't know what does. Why should I help you if you are not willing to help yourself? Why should I "spare you change" from my money that I worked for if you're not willing to work? Why should I bum you a cigarette? They're expensive now, and I paid for them. No you can't have my money. No you can't have my cigarettes. Why don't you get a job instead?

HOME <---- That's right, I have one.