My patience is exhausted.
The waiter, the one who got fed up with the Owner's son, don't blame him, we all are, but he spoke his mind and quit and moved to Nelson to live under the Big Orange Bridge.
When I'm in town I keep in touch, buy him coffee, see how the job hunt is going. He's not interested in work, not particularly, he wants to buy a restaurant, get his own show up and running, I spot him 20 bucks for food, a pack of cigarettes, he's hopeless, his priorities completely fucked...
And then there's Batshit, whom I took to the Burlesque, and bought his ticket, and then bought him chocolates, at his insistence, then he gave them away, asked for more, wanted me to buy him this, buy him that, and I did some mental addition and realized he's cost me more the past month than my own kids, and I'm not current with those bills either, and so I told him, not so kindly, to lay off, and he's offended now and ignoring me but I'm kind of loving the break...
In Nelson, for every one person who works there's a dozen that don't and feel they have a claim upon your wallet, and your good nature takes you only so far when you come to town, the highly visible contingents of homeless that party every night and panhandle the day away, and you're every best intention is pissed or smoked away. I give up.