The Shitting of the Pants

 Our early morning meeting has been struggling with a homeless persons influx for a good while.  It bugs me.  I find them disruptive and believe that the reason they're showing up is for coffee and cake and to take a quick bath in the bathroom sink.  I'm empathetic - I feel for their suffering and wish that they had access to or took advantage of the various social agencies that can help them with their nutrition, housing, and mental health issues.  Generally, I'm OK if someone comes in for the coffee and then sits quietly in the back row but these folks are talking to themselves and getting up and down and round and round.  I find it distracting.  I've brought up some solutions (in my mind, anyway) for this challenge which have been summarily rejected in our business meetings by the nicer-than- nice California crowd.

Then one Saturday our main antagonist showed up to the meeting early and lost control of his bowels in the room.  It was quite the scene, man.  He was subsequently banned from attending and in our next business meeting we finally voted to put coffee and cookies on a one month hiatus, a solution that I had been proposing since before dinosaurs walked the earth, to no avail.  

And . . . that was that.  For a few days the homeless would stroll in, usually mid-morning, check out the kitchen, and then stroll right back out.  This lasted a few days and then no more homeless people.  I know I sound a bit heartless but we're an organization designed to help people quit drinking, not one that can solve health, addiction, and housing issues.  I can safely say that most of these folks are too far gone to ever get The Program.  One dude asked me if I heard voices in my head.  It must be hard to listen to what's going on in the meeting when someone else is talking to you at the same time.

In less than a month our attendance is up 50% and we're getting some younger folks to show up.  I was ready to quit drinking when I finally wandered in but if the room had been streaked with shit or I had to wait a guy putting 15 creamers into his coffee in the kitchen I doubt I would have stayed.