To clarify, I’ve never actually been homeless. But there was a period of time where I was treated as if I were homeless on several occasions over a brief period of time, before I learned a valuable lesson.
Now, during this time, about five years ago, I wouldn’t say my wardrobe was what you’d call dapper, debonair, or sharp.
It was more hungover roadie meets Abbie Hoffman.
I’m from Alaska afterall, a blue-collar town. I used to wear eleven dollar Dickie’s. I was steeped in grunge music during the height of the 90s.
My main interest was basketball, which meant that if I was really trying to impress a girl in my class I’d be wearing ripped jeans and a Gary Payton jersey.
I then moved to Seattle where guys dress like they just got back from a fishing trip, whether they actually had or not, so I never felt any pressure to look more put together.
To be clear, everyone I knew from Alaska thought guys who tucked in their shirts and got their beards custom-shaped were dorks, which they are, and when I moved to Los Angeles and walked among the children of shady billionaires my belief remained the same, and I almost dared someone to say something.
I resolved to do the bare minimum. If a restaurant required long sleeves I’d make sure the shirt was oversized and had a giant Budweiser logo on it.
I had a chip on my shoulder. Somehow I’d confused being undesirable with having integrity.
Then, the system really started fucking with me.
To say that my usual wardrobe was casual would be an understatement, but my gym attire was that of a Somalian regugee who’d been marooned at sea on a teetering wooden boat.
I simply didn’t see the point of dressing up just to get sweaty. My running shoes, a pair of still-functioning expensive New Balances, were five years old, and beginning to take on the uniform color of soiled concrete.
My shorts were jorts, jeans that had been worn down to the point where the only saving them was to amputate the legs.
My shirts, typically giveaways serving as advertisements. Marijuana dispensaries, LA Clippers Latino Night. Señor Frog’s, Puerta Vallerta.
I’d work out at a fancy gym in West Hollywood (wondering why I was the only one who got asked to show ID upon entering) and then sometimes hit up a restaurant for a quick bite afterwards while soaked in sweat.
“I’ll have a burrito,” I’d say.
“For here or to go?” they’d ask.
“For here,” I’d say.
A few minutes later I’d be presented with a To-Go bag. I shrugged it off.
“They probably just screwed up. Again.” I’d think to myself, and walk home.
Soon I figured it out. They thought I was homeless. They didn’t want me in their establishment.
I began suspecting they were sabotaging my orders out of passive aggressiveness to keep me from returning while still serving me in order to avoid a lawsuit.
A normally taut spicy tuna roll would be unravelling into a birdnest, a sandwich thrown together as if the ingredients were important personal possessions and the person preparing it were being evicted.
A few days later I went to meet my friend for lunch at fairly pretentious restaurant, wearing a Dave & Buster’s hoodie.
My friend had agreed to buy me lunch in exchange for doing him a favor.
The favor: Run by his old apartment and pick up from his ex-girlfriend with whom he was not on speaking terms a check for his security deposit and his old mail that had accumulated for several months.
I walked inside the restaurant carrying two Ralph’s grocery bags stuffed full of credit card applications and grocery coupons.
It was a crisp winter day, so I was wearing my thermals underneath my shorts. I may or may not have been sipping on a Bud Light I’d brought for the road.
I was greeted by a curt, dark-haired hostess. (Why are they always dark-haired?)
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“I need a table,” I said.
“Oh, we don’t have any tables,” she said.
I looked around. The restaurant was completely empty.
“What do you mean you don’t have any tables?” I retorted, quickly.
“Sir, we’re going to have to ask you to leave,” she replied.
“Oh, I see what you’re thinking. This is my friend’s mail. He asked me to—”
Just then my friend entered the establishment.
“Here he is. See. It’s him,” I said, feeling like I was trapped in one of those movies where my identity was stolen and my bank accounts were being frozen.
“I’ve never seen this guy before,” my friend said, grinning from ear to ear.
Basard.
He had to do it. I would have done the same thing. It was too funny of an opportunity to pass up.
A hulking security gaurd approached me and I calmly turned and walked out the door.
I’d been bested, this time.
Over the next few months I began ordering clothes off of the internet, and while I felt a little more confident, I was still resentful that my passive protest of looking like shit all of the time had finally been stamped out by the establishment.
Perhaps they had given me a finite age to stop putting up with this. It’s one thing if you’re nineteen, quite another pushing forty.
I then did what anyone else in my situation with a serious personality disorder would have done: Moved on to something else to be confontational about, all be it while looking substantially better.
The lesson, one way or another you’re going to grow up eventually.