Am I a Hobo?

I panhandled a dollar the other day to catch the bus to labor ready to get day labor, and I ate at the soup kitchen on my lunch break.  And I worked real hard stripping copper wire to junk for some cash, but since I stole the wire from a construction site, it was a hustle. I've been making bracelets too to earn some money, chain mail designs out of steel wire. They look really neat.  I took some of the money I earned and bought food stamps 50 cents on the dollar, welfare fraud. I'm going back to Minneapolis to do that UPS gig where they hire you to work there for a week at a time for 9 bucks an hour and I'm gonna apply to work the sugar beet harvest in the fall.  I'll probably hit up a few food banks while I'm there too and eat the free meals.  Good dumpsters in that town too.  I'll be sure to hit them up. I might even get drunk one of these nights and pass out in a ditch.

So what am I? A hobo a tramp or a bum?

Oh, and did I fail to mention, I haven't bathed in ... hmmm.  Can't remember how long it was, but I seem to remember having done so at Bruce's when I was last in Mpls.  You know, I'll gladly Accept the tramp or bum label to escape from the ridiculous high and mighty righteousness of this whole "I'm a true hobo" bullshit.  I do work hard, but I don't always get paid for it.  Sometimes I don't do nothin’
and get somethin’ for nothing.  The thing is, I've got nothing against hard work…

…and it makes me sad, when I hear Steamtrain talk about the days when you drink the water right out of the streams

…I'm just a little bear, riding my little trains all over the place, doing what I do and not giving a shit about whether you like it or not.  And when it comes down to it, that's really what its all about, right?

Comments

[Box Car Monty's Kin]

I will answer those questions just for fun::

Your not much of a bum when you only bum a buck for a ride. But I am guessing you are probably not homeless, by the fact that you have a computer online to type the comment I am responding to. So you are probably either bumming a place to live, or running around with a lap top and an internet card. Something I do not see many homeless bums running around with.

You admitted to being a thief when you steal copper wires. Probably just stealing to have spending money. Money that wasn't earned. And since you are eat at soup kitchens I can gather your stealing was not for food. Speaking of food I bet your room mate or mate or family probably feed you also.

I gather you probably only find honest work at that Labor Ready you spoke of, for when you need a really big item to purchase and need more cash then your petty schemes you pull off.

Speaking of petty schemes! You are obviously a con artist, who understands trading but does it on such a small scale that you buy food stamps .50 on the dollar so you can eat, as you let us believe from your writing. You probably sell them at .75 cents on the dollar. Either way, since your eating off everyone else, why not just get into trading, you bum!

If I was wrong about you and your not living with someone, and you are homeless and smelly, do society a favor, and everyday when you have to use the jon...go to a gas station, use the jon when you are suppose to be washing your hands, don't be lazy keep going, wash the rest of yourself. Takes a few minutes but it sounds like you have the time being a bum and all. And if you are living with someone do them a favor wash up, because that might cause a domino effect where you start noticing their smell, and then you make them clean up, and everyone in your town thanks you for taking the first bath. Besides next time your trying to pan handle a buck, the better you smell the more approachable you might be at Labor Ready trying to get that job.

As for a Hobo question I will say that since Hobo is defined as:
"A Hobo is a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, often penniless." (from wiki)

I do not think you met the Hobo qualifications from what you have written. Since you never did say if you were homeless or not, and you obviously have a enterprising spirit to earn, trade, bum, and borrow money it does not sound as though you are very penniless. But if you are a migratory worker traveling place to place seeking work, and trying to earn a buck, then you are a step above the rest being computer literate. However; Computers do help the job search, but I do not think that traveling the web for jobs on the internet meets the migratory worker qualification. It may be traveling but I think it had other meanings. Good luck with that.

So the answer in closing is that you are obviously a computer savvy literate, Thief, Con-Artist, and Bum.

That was fun!