Strange Days

I spent a few hours yesterday standing at a busy intersection in my city, holding up this sign. As usual, when I hold up one of my signs - always at a busy intersection - not too many respond: honks... thumbs up... or middle fingers for that matter. At most one in fifty of those passing by. Still, thousands might pass by in an hour, so they are getting seen.

Most are positive to the message of my sign, and usually, it's divided about equally between men and women. Yesterday was different though. More people were responding positively than usual. A lot more. And most (eighty-ninety percent) of these were women.

One of the ladies even stopped, thanked me profusely, and apologized that she couldn't join me. Very heartwarming, that.

And as you might have noticed in your own cities, vagrants are taking over. I've been going to one particular intersection for about five years. At the start there were no vagrants there. Now, they're on all four corners. Usually, there's no problem but yesterday one particularly unkempt specimen walked up and angrily accused me of "poaching" the corner.

Words were exchanged. I told him I wasn't leaving and he walked off violently cursing me over his shoulder. I kept a watchful eye out after that, in case he tried to bum rush me when my back was turned. Happily, he didnt.

Strange days have found us, friends - and they're getting stranger by the day.

Fitz