As I mentioned, Boston is pretty popular with me right now. Here’s another reason why: their bums are awesome.

The hotel I was staying at was about two blocks from Faneuil Hall (”faneuil” is a word I still don’t know how to pronouce, BTW… I think I’ve heard six variations), which I describe as Harborplace without the water view and much better. Anyway, while walking back we passed a bum sitting against a wall with a large empty Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup in one hand and a sign in the other that said, “HELP ME GET DRUNK.”

There’s nothing I like more in my bums than honesty, so I went up to him and told him I’d like to help him get drunk and fished in my pocket for a bill. I thought I had a single in there but the smallest bill I had was a fiver, so I gave it to him with a friendly, “here ya go.” He looked at the bill, looked at me, got this contorted shape to his mouth and grunted. Then he looked through me like I wasn’t there. I love shit like that.

Later, I saw two bums arguing, quite loudly, about economic stimulus checks. One bum was yelling at the other that he didn’t need to panhandle quite so hard because he had $600 in free money coming. The other bum wasn’t having any of it and kept telling the first bum to shut up and leave him to his work. That just made the first bum yell louder about the money they had coming. I guess you had to be there, but it was hilarious. You don’t see bums arguing about tax refunds in Baltimore.

(I’m pretty sure neither of these guys is getting a stimulus check, and if by some chance they do it would probably be for $300. But that’s neither here nor there.)