A Homeless Mindset

Remember when I posted about dressing up like Noah's Ark and racing in the LA Urban Iditarod? Yeah, that was awesome. There's one more anecdote, a prime example of my dumbassery, from that day (well, that night, technically) that I forgot to share.

After the Iditarod, I stopped to visit some other friends before driving back to Jessica's house, which rests atop a shwanky hill. Located at the bottom of the hill is a small park where I noticed several people dressed in funny outfits with shopping carts in tow chatting and drinking. I chuckled at the sight. Here we were a far distance from the race course and many hours later, and coincidentally, Jessica's neighbors had been there and were now keeping the party going.

Arriving at the house, I immediately told Jessica and Katy about what I had seen with excitement, and they, too, agreed that that was a funny coincidence. A short while later, I drove Katy home, and I pointed out the fellow Iditarod racers.

"Uh, Kevo..." Katy started. "I think... I think they're homeless."

I slowed the car to a near stop to get a better look. Indeed, Katy was right. These weren't flippant twenty-somethings, these were impoverished individuals who kept their every worldly possession in a shopping cart. They weren't wearing costumes, they were just wearing whatever they had. Oops. I felt like an idiot who had just completed an idiotarod.

This visual did help me realize, though, how entrenched the Urban Iditarod is in homeless culture: shopping carts, booze, awkward attire, and evading the cops. Come to think of it, "homeless" might be a good theme for next year's race, although it might be taking the task too literally. Plus, you just know we'd be the first people to actually get arrested.

Truthfully, since the race, I've semi-adopted a homeless person's mentality: I'm obsessed with shopping carts. Anytime I see an abandoned shopping cart somewhere (and I've realized they're everywhere now that I'm hyperaware of them), I pause to size them up. When Michael Michael came to visit, he pointed out that each time we were driving, I'd either slow down to look at the carts or make comments as to the quality of them. I hadn't even realized how preoccupied I've become with the carts until he mentioned it. It's super strange, and more than a month later, I still catch myself doing it in spite of myself.