Hot and Cold

While I was shopping for the sweater, I started to wonder why we don’t do clothing drives for the homeless and needy over the summer months. Don’t they get hot too? When I see them over the summer they are always swathed with coats and sweaters and sleeping bags – ya know, because it’s not as though they have an extra closet to store them away in or access to under bed storage. They are their storage units. But. Which leads me to, why don’t we ever see suitcases- for-the-homeless- drives? We pledge blankets and winter coats so that these poor people don’t freeze to death but what about the resultant storage needs? Give a man a fish v. Give a man a fishing pole …

Doesn’t anyone ever think of them in August? It’s hot and the homeless are wandering around looking like extras from Gorky Park. Why, doesn’t anyone want to get them shorts and tee-shirts? Why don’t we have plastic palm trees set up the vestibules at churches with pleas to purchase sunglasses or flip flips for the disadvantaged?

I mean if they can’t get coats and sweaters on their own where are they supposed to get shorts and tee shirts? Do warm weather clothes drop from the sky while cold weather clothing must be formally requested? I don’t understand. Why isn’t anyone doing a bathing suit drive in July? It gets cold and all of a sudden we care about them? Why don’t we care about them when its warm and the spend the summer dressed like Eskimos?

At most public pools, they won’t let you swim in a snow suit. Some places won’t even let you swim in a tee shirt. How are the homeless supposed to cool down? If we ran into them at the pool are we worried we would have to talk to them? Are we afraid they would sneak home in our tote bags along with our sunscreen? Winter clothes make them more bulky and less likely to sneak home tucked away in our handbags?

“The homeless are all around us”. Yes, but the rest of the year we pretend they’re not there. We feel guiltier about them freezing to death than we do about the chances of them dieing from heat stroke?

I just thought about this the other day after I was looking for the sweater. I’ve never gone out looking for a pair of shorts or a tee shirt for the needy, but every year I’m off looking for inexpensive winter coats and other cold weather outerware, who supplies warm weather clothing and if there is a supplier out there, why don’t they also supply coats and gloves?

What is it about cold weather that makes us want to help our fellow man? I know I don’t feel the same push to help during the summer months that I do the first time I have to pull on a jacket - I’m cold! Somewhere out there someone else is cold! I must get them a coat!. In August when I want to die from the heat, I do not automatically think I’m Hot! Somewhere out there someone else is hot! I must get them a pair of shorts! . I mean, screw you if you die from exposure during the summer months, but in the cold weather you must be attended to immediately? Do we think that Gawd cares more about us when we are cold than when we are hot?

I guess I’m thinking about this because it got cold here all of a sudden. I woke up and it was cold. I went out over lunch, still cold, now raining - to buy packing tape – the dollar store didn’t have any! It’s not like this is a time of year that nobody uses packing tape. Whatever.

I was driving back to work (the grocery store had packing tape, I paid too much for it.) and I saw the guy that lives along Western Blvd. I see him a lot. He’s mean. Anyway, I saw him wrapped in a blanket, shouting threatening things at passers by at the sandwich shop he was leaning against and I thought Oh, that poor man! It’s so cold. But, I see him all summer shouting threatening things at passers by and I don’t think Oh, that poor man it’s so hot!. Why is he more sympathetic now? He’s scary during the summer months too and I don’t want to get him a tee shirt.