Bell Ringers

Man do I hate those guys.

Here’s a great holiday plan:  Let’s put berserk hobos in front of every single place that you go, especially now since everyone just uses a debit card and has no use for coins anymore.

Could they possibly find a scarier crew of people?  I don’t know why they put a chain on that bucket because those motherfuckers are way too scary to look in the eye, let alone steal from.

I kid you not, when I was about 17 I went to interview for that job.  You go to this run down office, sort of the place you would expect the Compton version of the Office to be filmed.  In the waiting room was a collection of bums so fierce and out of it that I didn’t even know how they had lived to their mid-30’s.  Did you ever see that Geraldo special where he went into the mental hospital where it was basically just a darkened warehouse where they housed retarded people who were nude and rocking on the floor?  It was pretty much that except everyone had a coat on.

I decided not to go in for the interview.  It was a no-win situation where I would either get the job and then feel like an asshole for using the money to buy movies from Columbia House, or I would not get the job and then feel worthless because what kind of piece of shit can’t get a job ringing a bell outside a grocery store, and not only doesn’t get it, but loses it to someone who can’t be certain which planet he is living on.

And if they have to do this thing, could they give them some kind of training?  Maybe they do, but more likely I think not, because I can’t imagine a training that says, “Smile maniacally and ring that fucking bell as hard and as often as you can.  Remember, the harder you ring the bell, the less likely it is that the flames will come again in your nightmares.”