[Publib] Food for fines revisited

[Backwage at aol.com]

Ever'body is missing a missing a great opportunity here.  How about  "clean 
out the fridge day" just after the new year.  Combine that with  
"re-gifting days" and you get this:  a huge number of folks bringing by  uneaten 
holiday leftovers, fruitcakes and especially liquor.  
 
You know--people come to your house and bring by a bottle of Turkish Merlot 
 that they had lying around.  You don't drink it.  Heck, somebody else  
will.  Likewise the plastic-bottle "scotch" and the beer with the label in  a 
language nobody can read.  That and Aunt Masie's cranberry-marshmallow  
salad.  And now comes the beauty part:
 
You accept all this in lieu of fines, and give it all away to the local  
bums who've been hanging out in your magazine room.  On one condition: that  
they don't come back until at least Easter.  You get tons of humanitarian  
cred, maybe a writeup in the local papers; they get old muscatel, a nice 
bender  and some Christmas cookies.  
 
If you really want to look good, offer to take in ugly gift garments.   Why 
not?  You know your husband isn't going to wear that purple barn coat  your 
mother gave him two years ago.  Old Stinky (your eternal buddy  from the 
rescue mission) would love to have something to shamble around  in.  Shoot, 
give him that fifth of cooking sherry too and he'll love you  for life.
 
A few years back I got a few bottles of cheap wine in the office holiday  
potlatch.  It was stuff you wouldn't drink in a hundred years.  On the  way 
home from the party I presented it to a local mendicant who was reclining on  
a bus bench near the corner of Vermont and Wilshire.  He said, "God bless  
you, my man."  At least I think that was what he said.  I almost  cried, and 
me an atheist.
 
M. McGrorty
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