There Aren’t Many Better Places to Spend the Night

Sure you could choose the bed of some hot guy/girl/horse you meet in the bar after a night of Jager Bombs and Miller Light. Sure you could get a room in the Motel 5 of the I-25 out in Denver. But when it comes right down to it Charles Jones, Jr. picked a pretty sweet spot to set up his hobo camp, the basement of an Ocean Township, NJ library.

As New Jersey Newsroom puts it, “Think about it. If you were young, homeless and possessed intellectual curiosity, where could you hang out while pulling your life together?”

You have books to learn yourself something. You have fairly unlimited use of bathroom and shower (sink) facilities with little to no hassle from the security guy. And if you don’t have a huge conscious, you have free run of the employee fridge. Just stay away from that mystery pack in the back with “Steve” on it.

Some homeless people are really stupid when you think about it. They camp out under bridges or on steam grates on city streets but this guy used his noggin and set up shop in a library. Sure it’s a little stereotypical, the homeless guy in the library thing but this guy took it to the next step and found his way down to the basement. Now that’s intuition.

I applaud him for saving city, county, and state resources as well. This guy didn’t burden the “state” by taking up space and food in a homeless shelter. He wasn’t out taking up the time of the cops by panhandling on the street and going to buy a bottle of NightTrain, getting drunk and peeing on the steps of your brownstone.

He’s out there trying to find a place to stay warm, clean and better himself. Bravo to you Chuckie...next time though, don’t get caught!

Bells Will Be Rining (In the Non-Fiction Section)

More of “There is No Way I Could Even Make This Stuff Up,” for your reading enjoyment today.

SCENE 1 ACT 1
Bloggerman enters the men’s room at the local library to take care of some “business” before browsing the selection of new non-fiction to pick his next reading adventure. All of the sudden his ears pick up a distinct ringing that he knows he’s heard before. But where? Where did he hear that distinct “ring-a-ling-ling”?

Was it in school perhaps? Flashing back to my school days that sound does sound familiar. Are they signaling the end of the class period?

No, the library doesn’t have periods they wouldn’t ring a bell.

Was it to get the attention of a patron who walked out the door before getting his books fully checked out? No...that is more of a deep voice saying “Excuse me, but we may have failed to take off a security tag...”

I know where I’ve heard it before. It was a fire alarm. Oh yeah, we used to get those all the time. We were supposed to line up and exit in an “orderly” manor. Then when we got out of the building we were all supposed to gather in one spot so the teacher could count us all up.

OMG....it’s a fire!! What the hell do I do when that happens again? Oh yeah, Stop, Drop, and Roll....no that’s when I’m ON Fire...oh wait....it means get my butt out of there. The only challenge is that I can’t because I’m in the “middle” of something that you may use the restroom for. Should I try to stop and rush out? Nah...I think I’ll finish up here first. What would you do? As Kinky Friedman once sang “save your pants or your soul!”

I headed out of the bathroom and towards the exit. I have to say was I surprised to see most people having no clue what was going on even though the bell was more then loud enough to wake the dead (some of whom recently were buried in the periodical section). Most folks were just walking around casually and some were still waiting in line at the check out counter to get their books off of hold. See this is what Darwin meant by Natural Selection. Instead of pushing these folks out the door (I didn’t stick around to see if it was a real fire or not) and insisting that they hurry...just let them be and see what happens. Some will get out and others won’t. Those that didn’t make it...well at least they’ll be another parking space available in the front!