Frustrated at how little my Social Security provided, I joined the gig economy. Since I like to write doggerel, I had business cards made up that read: "Poet for Hire." I had the same made into magnetic signs for my van. Bright yellow. Very catchy.
Then my wife hand-lettered, on white poster board, "Poet for Hire." I took this over to the nearby supermarket parking lot and stood on the sidewalk during rush hour. I figured somebody might be curious enough to stop and talk and maybe I could write them a limerick for a few bucks. Not panhandling, you understand. I had something tangible to offer in exchange for payment.
After an hour a woman approached me. She had a pinched, drawn face, and was wearing torn jeans. Smoking a cigarette -- which is always suspect here in Utah. She was pushing a shopping cart full of Diet Coke, bags of Doritos, a gallon of Clorox, rolls of Charmin and a huge package of Bounty paper towels.
"You must be hungry -- here!" she said, handing me a bag of Doritos and a Slim Jim. Before I could give her my business card and explain what I was doing she wheeled her cart away. Like she didn't want to talk to me.
That opened the floodgates. Now people drove up to me waving dollar bills in my face. Or pushed deli sandwiches, bottles of water, and fruit leather into my hands.
"Wait! Stop! Let me explain!" I pleaded with them as they all drove or walked away before I could offer them my services. They didn't want my services. They had no interest in my business card. Finally I took hold of the arm of a young man who gave me a Hershey bar and forced him to hear me out: "I can write you a funny verse on anything you like! Something for Father's Day or to your girlfriend."
He shook me loose. Then beamed at me.
"That's okay, sir. For all I know I'm entertaining an angel unaware, as it says in the Bible. Happy to do it. Good luck to you!" he said as he practically ran away from me.
So I was nothing but a panhandler to these people after all. A test of their charity.
"How'd you do?" my wife asked when I got home. "Anybody hire you for a poem?"
"Here" I said bitterly, laying sandwiches, candy bars, dollar bills, and bottles of water on the kitchen table. "I'm gonna go down to Wendy's. See if they're still hiring for weekends."
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