Once during my student days, I was reading outside the Redpath library at McGill, when a homeless man came up to me. “Spare change? For food, not alcohol”, he said. I dug into the top pouch of my backpack, and didn’t find any change whatsoever. I did, however, have a small unopened bottle of Absolut vodka (why I did is not the point of the story). I offered it to him and said that’s all I had. He looked down at me like I was the worst of heathens and went away.

In the hot afternoon yesterday, Cedric, Iris, Gord and I went for a sangria on St-Denis. A delivery man came up and asked us to watch his bike and the contents of its basket while he went inside momentarily. I asked Gord what he’d really do if someone stole the guy’s beer, and Gord said he’d kung fu them.

Now, you have to understand that Gord, sometimes known as Mr. Zero Forethought, is the one guy I know who actually could do something insane like that. This is the guy who shot his perfectly functional VCR with a crossbow, exploded a huge firecracker in his hand (on purpose), and ended up with 12 stitches to the balls after an altercation with a flagpole.

So naturally, sensing an opportunity to witness one of the infamous Gord Stories first hand, I offered one of the beers to a passerby. But again, no way to get anyone to take it. Why is it so hard to get people to take free alcohol?