The Bank of Opprotunity

I just had to deposit a check.

I turned my car off and placed my hand into the crevasse between the door handle and the door itself, and as I pushed I heard a bird. No, never mind not a bird, a man laughing. It was a raspy laugh, like that of an old drunk, and lo and behold that's exactly what it was. 8:23 AM. A drunk. Lovely.

I rotated to see where the sound was coming from because within all of these small seconds I was still having the bird vs. man debate pumping through my head. My overall conclusion was right as I finished rotating all the way to the right to see an old man laughing. But not just that, he was pointing. And he wasn't lazily pointing as you might imagine a drunk this early in the morning would do, but he had a firm point, like a beak. His nostrils were flared and his mouth was wide with delight. I quickly looked around to see if I saw anything laughable. That telephone pole behind me is sort of fun-

His laugh is loud.

"What's up bro?" I asked cordially. Don't startle him, he may become agitated.

"Your car got shat on!" he yelled.

Oh my.

I looked at my car, and I guess one could use that terminology to describe the situation that sat atop my car. I had parked under a tree that apparently didn't care for my taste in a black two-door from '95. I looked at my car for a while and then back at the bum, his eyes slowly shutting and then opening while his laugh faded.

"Oh...yeah," I said with a lackluster voice. I wasn't sure what to do, I sort of laughed a bit.

"You think that's bad..." he started to say. This never ends well..."you should see what that crap does to your face."

I wasn't sure how to take that. Was this a joke or an insult? I laughed because I figured that would suffice as a response to both.

"I slept under one of those trees one night and woke up covered!" He exclaimed. As he was saying this sentence he was getting closer to me and making a face that I suppose was reenacting the morning of his awaking, covered in tree shaz. I can't really use words to do that face justice.

By now, I was standing at the ATM and putting my check in as he and his shopping cart were trying to keep up with my pace. As he came over he began talking of switchboards. When I caught that word I started paying attention. How did we get from the tree's crap on my car to switchboards? I didn't get much out of it except the words, "My mother...the Chinese...two timing" and "good hickory" or something like that. I was sort of getting tired of playing this game (as I always do after a while) so I decided to go with an enduring closing statement:

"Well, stay away from those trees man."

As he heard this he looked at me like I was crazy. And he slowly bent over a bit and stuck his head out and forward and his arms wide open as he said, "I have been staying away from them, I'm telling YOU to stay away from them."

Touche. And then I decided that would be the last time I'm outsmarted by a drunk bum.