BOTTOMS UP!

Blog number six-tee                                       17 Nov 2006

I did some volunteer work at a detox center.  Just talked to the guys.  One guy was telling me about being in bars and pulling out large wads of cash when he happened to get lucky at the tables or got paid a large lump sum for some work he did.  A little later he was telling me about getting robbed.  One guy followed him into the bathroom at a bar and took all his money from him.  He said he only got robbed when he happened to have a large sum of money with him.  After he told me this, he looked off into space and kinda mused out loud, "I wonder how they knew I was loaded?" 

I told him that he showed them he had money when he showed them the wad of cash.  He looked surprised and said, "I did!  THAT's how they knew!  I told them!  Well I'll be damned."

One morning an old guy was being told by one of the ladies that he couldn't come in.  The old guy was nearly in tears.  I felt so sorry for him.  I asked what he had done to be barred and the lady said, "He knows what he has done."

I said, "Maybe not."  Sometimes people just don't realize they have done something wrong."

She said, "He tried to smuggle in some whisky through a window."

I said, "Oh."
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I found a book store close by the detox center that sold "Alcohol Anonymous" books at a very low price.  I don't think the author gets any royalties for them and they are probably printed cheaply because of the solidarity of recovered alcoholics.   I bought a case.  I don't remember the price, but I think I got a box of a dozen for ten or fifteen dollars.

I took them to the detox center and laid them on the floor by a post and left for lunch.  When I came back, the box was gone.  I asked at the desk if they knew what happened to the books.
The lady told me that someone left a case of the books and she had to take them into the office because they would get stolen if left out there.

When I left the books where I did, I had already reasoned that if any get stolen, at least they would be in the hands of somebody that wanted them, for whatever reason.  If they could sell them, then the person buying them would want them for whatever reason and they still could be in the hands of someone who wanted them.  Seemed like a win-win situation to me.

I told the lady that I had left them there and I didn't care if they got stolen that I would replace them as needed but she would not be swayed.  So I didn't buy any more.  I guess maybe I could have kept buying them until the office was packed to the ceiling with them, but I didn't think of that.

The irony is that the lady, in trying to save the books, lost all of them except for that one case.  I stopped going there after that.  I hate stupidity.