Looking out at the cold, gray morning through the windshield of my ride, I see the things I usually see each day; people rushing here and there like ants on crack stopping to get breakfast, go to the store, get gas, run mini errands and still try to get to work on time. Now I love cold, gray mornings and foggy, misty starts to my day so these things don’t bother me as much as they would if it were hot and muggy as summer can be. I happily cruise on in to my local Starbucks where I expect to see the homeless man that us usually there each day. The one who quietly sits with his cup hoping someone will buy him a meal that day and wishing everyone a good morning and good day. I try to give him something each time if I remember to put cash in my wallet instead of skating on plastic. I make the turn already savoring the taste of a hot white mocha latte warming my body as it runs down my throat. The anticipation of such a soothing experience is almost as good as the drink itself. And then it happens…………..he isn’t there. Someone whom I have never seen before has taken his place. He is ranting at someone in a parked car. I can’t hear what he is saying but he is obviously upset. He’s not old or dirty just rumpled and obviously homeless. He wanders around with a radio yelling and conversing with everyone and no one, all the while begging for money to buy a cup. I park a couple of spots away and try to think of a way to get around him but I have no choice but to walk by. In the space of the three seconds it takes me to pass him by, his entire life story laid before me with one sentence. He is one of the many people facing unemployment who can’t get a job in this economy. I was one of them for 8 months and by the grace of God I managed to find another job before my benefits ran out so I can sympathize with him. But his fate is what mine could have been and that frightens me more than this middle aged, well groomed, angry man in need of a caffeine boost. As I stand in line, I wonder if that is what I would have been reduced to; standing in front of my local Starbucks wearing old torn shorts and a camouflage backpack carrying everything I own, yelling and selling to an imaginary board room while Johnny B Good plays on my $20 boom box as I beg for cappucino. Begging for a latte or a frappucino….maybe. But I was a child of the 60’s so Chuck Berry is a little dated for me. I would probably have been shouting out to Lynard Skynard or Led Zeppelin. Oh hell, I probably would have gone for the jugular, straight to yuppie hell and cranked out Aerosmith. Even with my favorite music urging me on, the thought of being a homeless coffee junkie is frightening. Is that what our society has devolved into? Is this the result of a drug culture gone mad? Even our homeless yuppies are foregoing food for a fix… of anything!

When I was a child, we took pity on our homeless and invited them to spend a thanksgiving dinner at our table. Just one act of kindness that we were able to give once a year to let them know that they are not forgotten nor are they unwelcome in our society. That someone out there cared. Back then being unemployed and homeless was not the norm. It was a cruel exception to the human condition and was deserving of compassion. But in these troubled times, it has become the norm. Traffic is half of what it used to be and getting around is much easier but the lost and troubled are walking and talking everywhere. How long will it be before it isn’t just Middle America that is suffering? How long before the mighty magnates of the new era are brought low? Will we one day see Al Gore at the bottom of an offramp with a rechargeable solar powered sign begging for a job in the private sector? Would you throw a dollar to Donald Trump if he were playing a guitar and begging for change on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City? What would we do if we encountered Oprah Winfrey and the Kardashians outside of their plastic surgeon’s offices bearing signs that said “will work for Liposuction”? Would there be an ounce of compassion left in our souls should we encounter Warren Buffett, Martha Stewart or Bernie Madoff at a homeless shelter on Thanksgiving?

Losing everything is not that distance a threat these days. With Obamanomic manipulated socialism underway, over 90% of us are walking the poverty tightrope just barely surviving week to week. The equity that was Middle Class America is being siphoned off quicker than the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Would someone be compassionate enough to help me should I fall? Am I even worthy of that compassion? I hope so. I hope that what small things I often do for the less fortunate; the dollar here and there, the old clothes that I can no longer wear, the change that I don’t need, the extra food that I won’t eat that I gladly give them, haven’t gone cosmically unnoticed. I suppose if I wanted to continue in God’s good graces I couldn’t turn my back on the formerly wealthy simply because they had once lived better than I. Warren would be worth a week's worth of dinners considering that he is charging around a million for 1/2 hour of appetizers and some investing advice these days. Martha would definitely be worth some meal time if only for the decorating tips she could give. I may keep feeding her long enough to do a whole renovation. I might throw “The Donald” a couple of Benjamins but only if he performed without the hair piece. It’s unlikely he would fall quite that far given his vast skills as an orator. I’m sure someone in a human resources department somewhere could employ him to walk into people’s offices and say “You’re Fired!”. Bernie on the other hand would be a challenge. I think I would be bound to do the Christian thing and invite him to a family meal of caviar, salmon and/or prime rib with crème brulee for desert, but then feed him Manwich on .99¢ plain wrap buns while the rest of us ate. Hey, there has to be cosmic justice somewhere. But Al Gore can kiss my ass for starting this whole global warming panic. Let him eat grass with the rest of the cattle and keep contributing to green house gases with his speeches.

As I sit at my desk at work and stare at my computer screen at work, I struggle to find the right words to describe my daily presence in this internment camp for the working middle class. I can’t find them anywhere. When words fail us human beings, we tend to describe intense situations or experiences in our lives that leave us dumbstruck by comparing them to things that elicit the same reactions in us but from a different medium. For instance, the soft purr of a kitten can invoke maternal instincts and bonding in women. A rich, fabulous piece of chocolate or sumptuous treat is sometimes described as being orgasmic or sexual in how it slides across your tongue. Silk sheets can make you feel as if caressed by a lover. In fact being in love is often described as being on a never ending roller coaster of alternating pain and pleasure. For four months I have sought and searched through every experience I have ever had in my life to find the one that would adequately describe the feelings this place evokes in me. It was with great surprise that I finally realized, I had never experienced anything even remotely resembling my employment here. I would most certainly have to look elsewhere for inspiration so I turned to my most beloved hobby to guide me. I read books. Given my predilection for horror fantasy novels, you can surmise the sort of imagery I was subjecting myself to. But lo and behold, my taste in books provided me with the perfect means to express my appreciation for my current job.

Picture yourself hanging naked from a tree in the Amazon jungle. You are dangling from a vine that has little red flowers along its length that chatter and mimic human voices. It is crawling with stinging red ants and you are suspended over a murky brown bog bubbling with man eating piranhas. They jump greedily from the water and chew away bits of your flesh with every leap while the little flowers mimic your cries of pain and laugh at you. At the top of this vine sits a troll in a business suit with a grin like a shark wearing Jimmy Choos and an outdated designer outfit. Each time the fish eat away at you to the point where they can no longer reach you, you feel a tremendous sense of relief as the pain momentarily subsides. But then the troll turns a crank and you drop down another few inches. The fish begin to feast on you yet again and the troll chuckles and gurgles while you writhe in agony and flowers continue to mock your every scream. Once you have this image firmly visualized and can actually feel the despair and hopelessness that such an embodiment of evil can produce, you will understand exactly what it is like to walk through the front door of my office and hear that ominous click as the door locks behind you......

You may think I am being a bit melodramatic but the cocktail of high blood pressure pills and anti-depressants that my doctor has insisted I take before I have a stroke would indicate otherwise.