I was at a hardware store once. It was a Thursday. Or maybe not, as I've been in many hardware stores on pretty much every day of the week at this point in my life. But, it was a day and I was in a hardware store getting supplies for the smithy. As I approached the cash register a large oak and steel banded barrel caught my eye, and glittering within, in all their simplistic glory, where hundreds of ice picks. Simple, thick stainless-steel shafts honed to wicked points, each some four inches long, mounted and ferruled firmly to oaken handles. The sign on the barrel said "$1 Ea." and I was compelled to buy several dozen.
There are several city parks in Albuquerque where the homeless reside (as much as they reside anywhere of any permanence), and on a semi-routine basis various charities in and about the greater metro area will use one of these parks as a staging area for a mass feeding, blanketing, clothing of these unwashed masses.
I want to go to one of these, with a giant sack full of icepicks. And I want to start at the back of the soup line making my way toward the front handing one out to each person - "Here, have one, Lord bless ye and keep ye in your struggles, we're all praying", rinse, lather, repeat, until every last icepick had been handed out.
For the homeless, they have no ice. And I... I have no faith in any of the supposed nobility of the savage.
Or his ability to resist base amusements.
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