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6-22-2002 - 9:17 p.m.
Saturday: Hanging With the Homeless I have a pass for 2 to the Lesbigay film festival this weekend, but my date is frolicking somewhere on Cape Cod with heaven only knows who....but I'm not bitter. No, Not Me! I decide I am not going to stay home and feel sorry for myself. Besides, I really wanted to see 'Big Eden', so Michael says he'll be my date, even though he doesn't sit still well at movies. Miss By gets wind of the fact that we are going to Westport (Arts and Entertainment/Gay district in KC) and she wants to tag along. There's a vintage/recycled clothing store near the theater where my friend's sister works. Missy wants to trade a few thing in and get some new, funky threads. We part company on the sidewalk in front of the store, making plans to meet again after the film. I am not worried about the child because she will be under my friends's watchful eye while we are in the movie. Did I mention that Miss B is carrying a laundry basket filled with some old clothes, purses, hats and boots she wants to trade? 'Big Eden' is charming and sentimental. I like it a lot. Michael is bored and says the movie is unrealistic. Whatever After the flick, the child is not in front of the store. She is not in the store, but she has been, according to my sister's friend. We look in a few of the surrounding stores. No Daughter! We walk down to the end of the block where there is a church that shelters the homeless. There she is, sitting on the steps of the front of the church, laughing and smoking with a group of homeless men and women. Amazingly, she looks like she fits right in, wearing baggy cammo pants and a wool watchman's cap. Not only that, it appears she has everything she owns in a laundry basket. Apparently as Miss B is leaving the clothing store with her basket, she runs into a homeless person who mistakes her for one of the tribe. He befriends her, telling her that she is 'awfully pretty and fresh to be on the streets' but if she will stick with him, he'll be her champion. Miss Thang plays along making up a story on the spot of a hard life at home and hitting the road. Enter Dad and Michael who give the gurl 'the look' and tell her she better get her ass over here, NOW! The homeless folks take exception and are not about to let their little girl go off with a pair of strange looking men. 'You don't have to go, baby. You got family now with us.' Miss B realizes the game is over and says that 'it's OK, he's my Dad' but after the stories she's told, they look at me with even more hostility. Mikey jumps in, thanks everybody for their concern for the child and hands one of the homeless women a $20 'to get everybody something to eat'. And the moral of the story is? Fuck, I don't know. Miss Thang learns that the homeless are pretty much like the rest of us, except we still have addresses and a few options. But she was also playing with peoples emotions for her own amusement and I don't believe she has groked that yet. My life! It's a Sit-Com. I swear. We are funnier than the Osbourns
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