Kid In The Window

I essentially operate as a mobile homeless person.

I spend a lot of time in parking garages. Two jobs, two different garages I park in. Typically get there a little early in case all the fucking spaces are gone and I am forced to search out a spot on the street like the less fortunate do.

This has not happened yet. But it could. Because 75% of the spaces in the garages are reserved for the privileged elite. Businesses who lease the spaces, 50% of which typically go unused.

But there are signs. Don't park here, lowlife motherfucker. Or we will get you.

It is ironic that I obey those signs because generally I don't pay for the spaces I occupy, or I only pay for 50% of the time that I am there. I only got bagged once and it only cost me $15, so it is a worthwhile and exciting gamble.

Anyway, I get there early and I sit in my car in a dark, concrete, cold-hearted garage until it is time to report for duty.

The garage related to Job II sits opposite a day care. A very large day care facility. I often park facing the facility because I find it so bizarre.

It is a huge, brick building with gigantic insane asylum windows on the second floor. Probably built in 1225. Freaky.

As I sit, killing time, I watch the moms roll up and dump their precious children off. They park in the garage because they can zip in and out conveniently without having to pay. They are only there for 10 minutes.

It breaks my heart, but is mostly only in my mind. Most of the kids seem fine with it. Skipping, talking to mom as they walk by, no overt signs of unhappiness.

What I see is moms dropping their kids off like packages and rushing off to work. I hate it.

Occasionally I do see unhappiness. One cold morning a fat mom crawled out of her mini van holding her kid who was asking her to zip up his jacket. She kept telling him he did not need it zipped up; it was not cold.

We all know that fat people do not experience cold the way normal people do. This explains why you see fat folks walking around in January on an 18 degree day wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

I have experienced it myself since I have become morbidly obese. I experience cold and hot differently.

This kid was unhappy. This kid was cold. Mom didn't care. Her main priority was to dump the kid off and get the fuck out of there.

That one broke my heart for real. Life will suck enough for this kid over the next 70 years. He does not need artificial unhappiness introduced into his life by his own mom.

Recently I watched a mom walk her kid in. He did not seem unhappy. Body language seemed positive. Five minutes later, as mom walked back down the walk the kid appeared in one of the insane asylum windows. It was cracked open a bit so he called out to mom and waved to her. She spun around in surprise; but they both appeared OK with the deal. I did not sense unhappiness.

But the image bothered me.

When it was warm I would eat my lunch in the car in the garage (operate as a mobile homeless person). Job II has no lunchroom, no place to escape to wolf food. I think this sucks. It should be a fucking law that all work places have a lunch room.

Instead, every person in my office goes out for lunch. Bizarre.

One day I am sitting there eating my Spam sandwich, facing the brick mausoleum, when a kid suddenly appears in an insane asylum window.

In a darkened room. No lights on. He keeps walking up to this huge window and looking out, then disappears as he apparently walks around the room, then bops back into the window. No apparent adult supervision.

I was fantasizing that he somehow avoided whatever classroom he was supposed to be in and was hiding in this room. Having the time of his life.

It could happen. It is a big building and kids are delightfully devious.

I enjoyed the show. I was happy for the kid.

And for ten or fifteen minutes he made me forget I am a gainfully employed homeless person who lurks in dark, concrete, cold-hearted garages.