Walking down the streets of Boston on a warm summer's day, your ears will be greeted by a soft jingle jangle, warmly reminiscent of the holidays...but no, it's not Santa Claus gliding down Boylston street...it’s legions of homeless, all shaking coin-laden Dunkin' Donuts cups in unison, like they’re all part of some city-wide Bum's Bell Choir.

For being homeless, it sure seems like they’re never comPLETELY broke. They always seem to have at least enough coins to drop into a paper cup and turn the city streets into a gauntlet of hobo musical delights. Is it perhaps their hope that like Pavlov’s dogs, I’m just going to pull out my wallet and start uncontrollably dropping money wherever I hear the sound of change being jingled? Was it that too many homeless were losing their voices from their repetitious mantra"spare any change?", and so they decided to switch over to the "home"-made "money-maracas" they currently use? Or maybe they just decided:

When I first observed this behavior, I saw people who was too lazy to even beg for change, simply resorting to brutish grunts and feeble gestures. But upon closer consideration, I saw something more. These brave men are pioneers, entrepreneurs, out there shakin' what their mama gave 'em (albeit an old coffee cup). They've thrown caution to the wind and they've gone prospectin' for gold, but not in some creek in the hills of California; they're much too social to be chasing their fortune into the desolate wilderness. Nay, their plots are located in the hearts of our busiest cities. Where others see a sidewalk and a milk crate, they see opportunity. Where we see a garbage bin full of bottles and cans, they see their fortune. It’s a sad statistic, but approximately 90% of street corner hobo businesses fail withing the first five years. The majority of those have simply never learned the importance of bankroll management, simple bookkeeping, or supply and demand.

Is there some point in the day, when they’re just starting out, and they don’t have any coins in the cup? Are they just out there shaking an empty cup back and forth? I can’t imagine that’s nearly as effective, so those first coins of the day must be really important! They set the stage for all the other money to come pouring in. I bet the responsible ones save a few of their coins from the day before, so they can start the morning off right, with a proud jingle. Much like a gambler’s bankroll, that carefully chosen seed money will be the base from which any vagrant will hope to build his fortune. It’s just further proof of the old adage, “you’ve got to have money to make money”, at least a few pennies and a nickel, that is…

It’s a delicate balance too, to get just the right effect. You can’t have too few coins, because how much attention is a single penny in a styrofoam cup really going to attract? And you don’t want too many coins, because if your cup is full to the brim, you’ll be spilling change all over the street with every shake, and still won’t be making much of a ruckus. So there’s a happy medium.

The funny thing is, it’s a double edged sword. They want as much money as possible, but what if everyone just gave them dollar bills, or wrote them checks? They’d have nothing to jingle. Would they go to the store and get change? “I’d like allllll quarters, please”. So they rely on your change; just enough money to keep them in business, but not enough to literally “shut them up”…

Where did they learn this behavior? Do the homeless really possess such ingenuity as to conceive of such an advanced strategy themselves? Of course not, or else they wouldn’t be home-less, they’d be home-more, and they’d probably have cars, too! I think it’s fairly obvious who’s to blame. Our friendly local chapter of the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army first employed their handbell-armed assault on our eardrums back in December of 1925, and it was so effective in coercing strangers into surrendering their cash that to this day, like clockwork, as soon as you feel a nip in the air, you can expect to start wearing earplugs whenever you leave the house to go shopping; they’ve been going strong for 85 years. And do you think the homeless were blind to their success? Who else would be more concerned with the latest methodologies and technologies for scoring loose change from passerbys than the homeless?

Like it or not, the homeless are evolving, and I think it's just a matter of time before they start employing some even more succesful strategies from other high profile "beggars". Before you know it, they're going to be hopping door to door like the Jehovah's Witnesses, sending out junk-mail like the World Wildlife Fund, and scoring TV spots like the Adopt-a-Child foundation. We'll know they've really progressed when we see a check box on our state tax return that says:

■ I wish to donate $1 of my tax refund to Earl, the bum who sleeps outside the Kinko's Copy Center and makes animal noises at people when they walk past.

Ol' Earl is part of the lucky 10% right now, but the panhandling profession is a cruel mistress; he could be out on the streets by tomorrow....oh, wait...

Posted by V.I.Pierce Comments