Restaurant Row
Not a foodie story
A snapshot of Hawaii today … or to be more precise, last night.
I wanted to use a coupon for dinner at a restaurant that I’ll creatively call A.
While walking there, I found the sidewalk blocked by a couple of homeless people - a Local man and a nonbinary tanned persyn with shaggy blonde hair - apparently engaged in a … transaction of some kind while a better-dressed young Black man watched. I walked on the street to avoid them all. Then I took a detour into a parking lot, hoping they’d all be gone by the time I circled back toward Restaurant A.
Turned out the Black guy was walking parallel with me … until he got into the back seat of a parked car. He looked at me and said something I couldn’t hear. I ignored him and kept going.
By the time I looped back toward Restaurant A, I was horrified to see Mr and Mx Homeless standing directly in front of its entrance with his?/xir?/their? cart of stuff.
A customer was either going in or coming out. I was too far away to hear if the homeless duo were talking to that customer. I didn’t want to go in and risk them talking to me.
So I walked behind Restaurant A and proceeded to the next restaurant which I’ll call B. Which had a scantily clad, skinny (drug-emaciated?) Local homeless woman standing in the bushes in front of it and babbling at me. I’ve seen her there before, but I never had her try to talk to me before. I could have gone inside and ignored her. Nah.
As a friend asked, how much are businesses here losing because of the homeless camping out in front of them?
No homeless in front of Restaurant C. Stopped in front of a sign to read about an interesting deal there … while a young Black guy (not the same one from minutes earlier) STARED at me from inside with WIDE, intense eyes. Was he just trying to read my T-shirt or … ? He was the only person in the dining area; the staff there hardly has much of a presence. If I had gone in - if he had tried … something … no one would notice.
I couldn’t take that risk. I ended up dining at Restaurant D. Again, no homeless there. However, there were also no weirdos inside. Instead, lots of customers. And a lot more expensive. I paid three times what I was planning to pay with my coupon at Restaurant A! The homeless avoidance tax.
Yeah, I could have gone home and eaten there, but I didn’t want my multimile walk to have been in vain. And the food was good. Ordered something I hadn’t had in years.
You may have noticed I’m being vague. I don’t want to give away where I was. It wasn’t the real Restaurant Row in downtown Honolulu.
I forgot Restaurant Row even existed when I titled this post. Haven’t eaten there since … I went there to see the South Park movie in 1999?
I just learned that the theater at Restaurant Row was demolished by last summer … fifteen years after it closed in 2009. (Speed is a racistimperialistcolonialist concept in Hawaii.1) And that Restaurant Row was rebranded as Waterfront Plaza (it faces Honolulu Harbor) which only has a few food places left.
I’m also not mentioning what I ate because I don’t want to get into a food fight. Moralitarianism has infected everything. Tonight when I went back to Restaurant C, I read a post whose author bragged about his sooper diet. The one and only right one. Not mine. He eats Good food; I eat Evil food.
And yet I have no health problems. Never been sick once since my last stay in the Third World years before CONvid. And years before that, a doctor pronounced me to be in perfect health.2 What I’m doing works for me.
I’m in one piece. Can’t say the same for the homeless. Tonight I passed a shopping cart (not the same one as last night’s) and a Radio Flyer cart parked in front of Restaurant A. Their homeless owner(s) was/were nowhere to be seen.
Last night I kept thinking about how moralitarians would virtue signal about how much they care for the homeless while doing as much for them as I am: nothing. I don’t care. Are those who claim to care really ‘better’ than me?
Someone should tell that to the guys who race at night. Last April, one was arrested here for driving at 152 mph (245 km/h) in a 55 mph (89 km/h) zone.
Yeah, you could dismiss him as an allopathic quack. He might even have been Jewish. Oh noes! But the fact that I’m functioning for hours outdoors every day speaks for itself.