Darwin and Selective Possession

I was writing yesterday about the bad coupling of nuts and animals in the City, and thought of a related topic of observation that I’ve experienced lately, a question that I have to ask myself but know full well that I’ll forever be too scared to ask the homeless.

They find so much discarded on the sidewalks and in trash cans…how do they decide what to keep?

Some of them don’t decide—they just keep everything on makeshift trains of shopping carts, children’s toy wagons from the beach, and concocted backpacks of rope and tarps and blankets. Some won’t limit themselves with a shopping cart, but they will carry about twenty bags and bulk up like the Michellin Man with every article of clothing that they have on their bodies.
Some, like the guy that I saw on a Saturday on the way to drop off my laundry, live even leaner than that, although I had to wonder at what prompted his choices. He was on a bicycle, with no packs or baskets on the bike—it was clean of luggage. He had a normal amount of clothes for a rainy, cold winter day in SF and wore an army issue backpack that was full but not stuffed. About three things were hanging from the pack, and one of them was a flower pot.

What, I thought, does he use THAT for? And what did he give up to keep the pot?

Another possession question that cracks me up is homeless with pets, although it often doesn’t crack me up for long if the pet is abused. There’s an old guy by the Cal-Train station at Fourth and King that punishes his dog for stepping an inch away from him, even with a leash on, by jerking the choke collar. I know that procedure is one way to train a dog, but something tells me he does it too much if he has to keep doing it for the length of my tenure here in the Golden State. When I see him I’m torn between lassoing him and jerking the noose, and shooting the dog to put it out of its misery. Another guy on Market walks back and forth around 3rd Street with a black cat on a string. Most of the time the cat rides on his shoulders, but if the cat’s walking, then he gets yanked too from time to time. I’m surprised the cat puts up with that malarkey—cat’s are supposed to be more aloof and more dangerous than that.

And what DO these guys feed their animals? I mean, they can’t feed themselves…

I’m completely flummoxed by these questions…but it does provide something to think about in terms of living outside one’s means.