Posted by AshFan at fwocpx01.ex.cargill.com on August 19, 2003 at 12:09:58:
The best part of my week in Atlanta had to be the bums.
The bars out there close at 4am, so every night at 4:15am we would walk back to the hotel, and each group was assigned their own bum (by some bum coalition kingpin I suspect) to follow them the whole way.
I heard some of the best stories I have ever heard... the same bum in the span of the walk back... was 1) getting last minute collections to drop off at the salvation army 2) trying to get up enough money to replace the coil in his car and 3) trying to buy some Mad Dog 20/20.
I also learnind that at the end when you get to the hotel and they stop and start saying "HBO" that they are not asking to come up to your room and watch TV with you (I learned this the hard way) It stands for "Help a Brother Out" at which point you are supposed to give them money.
Also, one was downright angry that I did not want to give him any money and began to DEMAND cab-fare back to his corner of origin so that he would not have to walk it. I did not agree with his reasoning and began explaining his faulty logic when he just stormed off in a huff.
We missed the power outage, as Atlanta was not effected, and we were PISSED!! So we began singing "The night that the lights ALMOST went out in Georgia".... and the assembled bums all began an interpretive dance number based on our singing.
Bottom line... I think we should import some of these very entertaining bums to other parts of the nation, so that we can all delight in thier wonderful antics.
Sorry for the fragmented nature of this post... My brian is a little fried from a solid week of no sleep and alcohol abuse... Oh! and learning.