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Note: This story may contain mature themes and adult language.
If you are offended by such material, you might want to turn back.

What if you decide life would be a hell of a lot easier if you were homeless like that guy under the newspapers who has no job and no stress and nothing to do all day but sit on the sidewalk not answering to anybody and not obligated to go anywhere except maybe to the shelter where they'll give him a free dinner he won't have to fix or wash up after and a warm bed where he can sleep until morning when he won't have to think about facing a boss and a wife and the traffic again, but all he'll have to do is head into the world and find another place where he can catch more shuteye like where he's laying now on that park bench you just drove by in your new BMW with six-CD changer, leather seats, and sunroof, on your way to and from all the pressures of your life you could really do without like the job you've been holding for six years with no sign of a promotion or a raise even though the goddam cost of living keeps going up, up, up and you keep working longer hours than anyone in the place but they still gave the promotion to some guy who just moved into the department from marketing because he has one-eighth American Indian blood, or Native American as he insists on calling it, and that's enough for the boys upstairs to feel politically correct promoting him past their most loyal employee which is annoying enough, but not as annoying as the fact that every morning, and I mean every fucking morning, your alarm goes off at five-thirty even though you don't need to get up until six-thirty, because your wife who grabs onto every fad exactly ten years after it's become passé has decided now is the time for jogging and morning is the time to do it so she has to be decked out in her designer sweat suit and ninety dollar Nikes pounding the pavement before six only she doesn't run far so she manages to slip in the shower ahead of you and you can stand there for forty minutes while she shaves her legs and her pits and God knows what else or go down the hall to the guest bathroom where there's no water pressure and no hot water as long as she's still in her shower so really it's a choice of a flaccid cold shower, which you usually take, or no shower at all, since by the time she's out you need to be dressed and halfway through your first cup of coffee which you can't face traffic without but which will give you heartburn by ten A.M., so you pocket some Mylanta and yell goodbye to your wife who's still in the shower where she's been for precisely twice as long as she spent jogging, and that whole wretched morning routine makes you think not only does that homeless guy have no wife to annoy him but probably has a time limit on showers in the shelter which wouldn't be a problem for you since you like short showers, it's just that you like a little hot water and some pressure every now and then for Chrissake, but no, you live with Jane the Jogger and taker of interminable showers, so every day you're stuck on the freeway, feeling clammy from the lukewarm unpressurized shower you took, while some moron behind you honks as if you could do anything about the traffic which your homeless friend never has to worry about since he can wander around enjoying some park or thinking about hopping a train and seeing another part of the world, watching scenery rattle by outside an empty boxcar, which sounds pretty good to you since you haven't been out of this Godforsaken town in three years because whenever there's a business convention in Chicago or New York or one time in New Orleans, where you would love to go and chow down on Cajun food, the guys upstairs send somebody else, because, they say, you are indispensable, which they try to make sound like a compliment, so you are utterly fettered unlike your friend homeless Bob who is so unfettered that he might wake up tomorrow and decide to go to Chicago or New York or New Orleans and just go there and it wouldn't matter how long it took because it wouldn't be like he had a meeting to be on time for or a hotel to check into or a boss to call like you would have to do if they ever sent you anywhere which they don't so it's all beside the point except that it makes you think, when you see that guy sitting on that bench that you would be better at being homeless than he is because you wouldn't sit staring into space you'd read all the books you've been wanting to read but never had time to because either you had a damn report to finish or reception to go to or your wife wanted to do TV aerobics with the volume turned up loud enough to be heard all over the house, or maybe you'd hop that train to New Orleans and check out the French Quarter and the Jambalaya, or maybe you'd just enjoy the power of his position-nobody to answer to, nobody controlling your every move-and do things you were always afraid to do like walk down dark alleys at night or wander through the part of town you always see on the local news because some crack dealer got shot, and not even worry about being mugged because who would mug a homeless guy, but the best part might be walking along the sidewalks downtown and watching people move away, having people be scared of you, for a change, and you're thinking about how much you would enjoy the power of poverty when you remember you're late for a meeting but your friend on the bench isn't late for anything and you can't resist the temptation so you turn left and drive around the block and pull up in front of the bench and get out and offer to trade the guy the keys to your car for his newspaper, and he, being an incredible sucker, actually says yes?

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