If your desperate for a job,
then in a call centre its always
easy to get hired.
Just talk to people on the phone and
you'd be unlucky to get fired,
no suit no references and no CV required,
no bulshit questions in the interview
they need staff and you will do,
just turn up everyday,
not too late and not too wired.

Its OK love,
you can stop your huffing
and your puffing,
dont you worry,
I'm not trying to sell you nothing,
in me you can put all your trust in.
But on any call thats cold,
thier's an idea to be sold.
Its my job to find easy meat,
keep you sweet, and transfer
you through for a stuffing.

Three hundred calls a day,
automatic dialer,
Something in your lunch box
to get a little higher,
you can get through it if your a smiler.
You'll hit your target and you'll be fine,
if your in everyday and on time,
and you can **** it if your a **** like me,
or a compulsive liar.

If thiers a hunt then I'm the hunter,
if your cuntish, then I'm cunter,
if your near the top,
then of you I'm infronter,
if your smashing it I'm twatting it,
you've got twenty five call backs,
but I've got one thats having it,
cant keep up with me
because your tongue's blunter.

I could sell a puma to a mouse,
I could sell Puma to a scouse,
I could sell Subo to a *******,
I could sell ****** to a man with no ****,
I could sell a bag of AIDS
at the methadone clinic,
and I could sell Jim Beam Famous Grouse.

I sold Bit coins to Barclays bank,
I sold my dairy to Anne Frank,
I sold a pea-shooter,
to the driver of a tank.
At a mosque I sold a pig,
I sold glow sticks,
at a black metal gig,
and I once sold cystitis
to a *****.

I sold a car to a man,
who did not drive,
sold a book to Ray Mears,
on how to survive.
I sold lessons to Tom Daley
to learn  how to dive,
Sold a man without a dog,
lessons to teach it how to behave,
I sold a razor to ZZ Top
and  persuaded them to shave,
and I sold a vegan a steak
so rare, it was still
half alive.

I sold a man a coffin,
one he'd never get in,
as he'd already donated
his body to medical science,
I sold a cave man an electrical appliance,
I sold a pair of eight thousand watt
speakers to a libary,
as a teen I sold a bag of magic beans,
but that was snide of me.
And I sold the man, to Johny Rotten
when he was the eptimone of defiance,
yea I sold that rebel compliance.

Drilling that dailer in a
cut throat environment,
psych's you up so much
things can get violent,
gotta be battle ready,
its a job requirement.
Saw a lad get phone wrapped round head,
he hit the floor and the line went dead.
We fixed that phone but he was ******,
and had to take early retirement.

Sad when that little bird is gone,
but then starts an even fitter one,
not that I ever got a grip o'one.
Such a huge turn over of staff,
I've a heart of stone
but even I had to laugh,
they cant take the heat,
so they get out the kitchen.

Ohh the joys of cold calling.
Stop complaining your job is boring,
only your benifits out
the bank you'd be drawing,
what else are you getting these days
in this nation,
with your record and reputation?
You'd have to subsidize
as a secret shopper,
or serving those that are scoring.

Our education, was at best pathetic,
all the ****** jobs are taken
by those with a higher work ethic.
they cant speak clear English,
but to thier credit,
they work hard and put in the hours,
but these call centres are ******* ours.
They've had everything else
but cold calling? haha they can forget it.

There was a manager, he was my chief
he had a week off,
to soak up the sun in Tenerife.
I thought ******* and scived for two,
had holiday of a lifetime in Elevenarife.
Got back, got grief,
asked why have I been off
when I was'nt meanter,
because I'll always go one better than you
when working in a call centre.
Yea I had self belief.

I'd turn up stinking of the *****,
my manager, for me would make lame excuse,
he knew through that day I'd cruise,
a liquid meal helps the speil.
lets hope so or both our jobs we'd lose.

To behave like that no-one aught'er,
if you'd murdered me at that time
you'd deserve a charge of manslaughter.
In pub at lunch, everyday in deep water.
look again, Ste is ******
advised to stop, but I did insist.
Did not finish top that month,
but still ******* smashed it that quarter.

In the end I quit,
I decided call centres are ****.
had enough of it.
I will not work in a
call centre again
until the day I die.
kept getting passed over for promotion
was not happy,
but reading over these words
I'm starting to understand why.
Yea at times I could be a ***.

Were all *****, us that cold call,
but I was the biggest **** of them all.
Yes I could sell a winter jacket
before the fall,
yes I could sell a nun a magazine from
the top shelf,
but most importantly of all,
I could sell my own bulshit to myself.

Tis a life of profit and gain
counted loss innocence slain

love measured in gold
Passion an entertainment sold
Poverty humanity to hold
labor of innocent child sold
hunger pains in famine unfold
to the needed food for profit sold
nations war, borders to hold
profited by guns sold

Honor and pride humanitys pain
love of innocent souls sold in vain

Nature her teasures doth hold
Destroyed by greed and sold
beauty of flowers at day unfold
Withered in poison its home sold
beasts born free a zoo doth hold
forest to factories sold

nature by human deeds slain
Sold to us suffering and pain

tis

I am a traveling salesman
and in my travels I have
sold many a thing
in middle class America,
I sold debt, love, lies,
wasted youth, and forgotten dreams
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.

My travels brought me to
the south of the Rio Grande.
Disease and poverty were
on the first of my list of things
to sell.  Soon, heartbreak, hate,
tyranny, and fleeing for a future
followed,
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.

I traveled to the east, the
exact opposite of where humanity
once tread.  I sold many things there
to people none the wiser.
Racism, genocide, and intolerance
I removed from my bag, and they
received tyranny and fanaticism
for free,
and none were the wiser
of what I sold.

I fled to the north to sell my goods.
The land of former kings provided
a great market for distrust, poverty,
and eventual declines from the great
history the land once knew.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.

So I went to the last place of my sales
the not-quite-Far East.  And there I found
the best market for civil wars, censorship,
arms sales, rebellions, and most of all,
potential.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.

And so I fled this world to sell to another
and in my travels, I sold the world
to things leading to destruction.
And none were the wiser
of what I sold.

(song lyrics)
Verse 1:
Now I can’t go fishin’, ‘cuz ya’ sold my rod and reel
Can’t go snow-racin’, ‘cuz ya’ sold my snowmobile
And I got flaws - that’s for sure - and sometimes run amuck
But the final straw that I can’t take: Ya’ sold my pickup truck

Chorus:
You can burn the house, shoot my dog and stomp my ol’ guitar
But when you sold my pickup truck, well, Honey, ya’ went too far

Verse 2:
I didn’t care when ya’ bought that stuff on TV’s QVC
Or ‘cause ya’ always thought of me as your private Money Tree
Or catalog-orderin’ ever’thing from within ol’ Sears Roebuck
But I’ll be danged if I’ll sit still since ya’ sold my pickup truck!

Chorus:
You can burn the house, shoot my dog and stomp my ol’ guitar
But when you sold my pickup truck, well, Honey, ya’ went too far

Verse 3:
So I went and saw a gypsy gal, and a curse on you imposed
To put sand in your chewin' gum and runners in your ***** hose
And all your clothes and accessories to never, ever match
And chiggers in your bed sheets - so you’ll always have to scratch!

Chorus:
You can burn the house, shoot my dog and stomp my ol’ guitar
But when you sold my pickup truck, well, Honey, ya’ went too far

Verse 4:
I seen ya’ last Saturday night at Bubba’s Bar and Grill
The image of you in stripes and checks remains within me still
And them red chigger welts upon your nose and face
Tells me that the gypsy curse is workin’ ever’ place!

Chorus:
You can burn the house, shoot my dog and stomp my ol’ guitar
But when you sold my pickup truck, well, Honey, ya’ went too far

so this nun mary from the school
of the sisters of notre dame
(dame or Dane?) had her brain removed
and probed: full of plaques and entanglements,
advanced Alzheimer's the coroner said,
aged 101 the brain,
yet up to her death no symptoms of the disease...
she was one of 678 subjects of the nun study,
American experiment genesis 1986 a.d.,
(journalism is really a true ally of poetry),
the 678 were told to write a character assassination
in range between poetry and diary (in their 20s),
"low idea" density they did produce,
but like Sister Anastasia: an amazing poppy-seed cake.
indeed dementia, the western medical anxiety,
10% of people over 60 and 50% of those over 85,
the grey plague i call it (grey matter, no
vermin scuttling about);
men are particularly less at the risk,
long gone the vogue of smoking tobacco -
could have asked the Apache indians about
peace-pipes long into their 90s... but no.
Aloysius Alzheimer / Oppenheimer
discovered the anti-ego unit and the atom bomb
with the neuron, in the latter case the 'd'uh' gene...
cave in the vowels on discretion
saying 'y Dinosaur kno'w, but i saw
a big mushroom boom' caving in meaning they
have to sound more hollow than you thought before
(the vowels, the vowels)...
like the article states, is it really a dis-ease?
i.e. a negation of ease? only if you found learning
at school to be torture and equipped with
a mentality for menial tasks like sunset on a monday
or summer 1904 so too summer of 2014...
no dementia in the giant Galapagos turtles,
they outlive us and still have a brain-rate
on a scale of: take one step here, plop a **** there...
lettuce, lettuce, lettuce... munching this greenery
will take forever! indeed the backlog of libraries of
knowledge and the result of those pioneer futilities
never tapped, still fucky fucky, toow dollar sucky sucky
on the cranium donning a crown.
the rest of the article concerning 4 inches closer
between the finger that dipped into peanut butter
(a closed mouth, eyes, and one nostril)
and identification of nature's diarrhoea (mm those
crunchy bits of fungi and corn undigested) -
but i'd tell you the experiment is faulty,
the peanut butter served up probably wasn't warmed up,
sense of smell and gaseous imprints, like
chlorine the disinfectant in public swimming pools...
not watching television a big give-away,
leisure time spent watching Plato's cave
at 27% of the sigma elsewhere and 18% by those
not afflicted...
then there's the whole dementia diabetes debate,
vegetables versus fruits... vegetables win...
Alzheimer's (also known as type 3 diabetes)...
imagine a creature coerced into disbelieving the
existence of water, and that alcohol is water
and a hamburger, that's me...
remember that nuns are cloistered yet sociable...

general hardbacks
1. the unmumsy mum (50,195 examples sold)
2. how it works: the mum (119,830 examples sold)
3. how it works: the husband (312,910 examples sold)

general paperbacks
1. the road to little dribbling (68,270 examples sold)
2. SPQR (26,765 examples sold)
3. the shepherd's life (61,000 examples sold)

want the fiction statistics of the publishing industry?
here goes:

fiction hardbacks
1. the last mile (4,190 examples sold)
2. private paris (3,225       "             "  )
3. predator (22,430            "             "  )

fiction paperback
1. career of evil (16,865    "              " )
2. the girl in the spider's web (55,625 examples sold)
3. make me (127,395 examples sold)

so there's that and there's the 148 diaries found in a skip
(a life discarded): apparently only 148 diaries remained
from a total of 1,000, the universal truth after seeing
Iolanthe, running incompletely from 1952 (Cambridge),
a "true thing" at 30 words per minute ranging between
1 and 3 hours of composition daily (handwritten,
imagine writing with a keyboard ***,
hand-crafted in Israel, yes the *** is an Israeli invention),

so there's that, all the intellectuals bits and bobs,
but there's also:
#instawoman: 'mostly non-fiction - so i keep
them in the loo. a paragraph is better than nothing,
even if it takes me five years to finish a book.
agony aunt "mrs. mills'" replies to modern truffles
(sorry, trivialities): my b/f wants to have ***
on trains on the Glaswegian side of scotland
bit tipsy bit turvy (turdy?) and popping to do likewise
on the Cornish coastline, her reply?
****** pervert... fetishism (Freud believed)
derived from a man's unconscious terror of once
having stuck his head out of his mother's ******...
(hey! my bladder man! my ****! that ****
didn't develop till i was outside that annoying
oven / aquarium!) - so she replies and says:
whisper "the seven o'clock London Liverpool St.
to Norwich", and as my own input:
for a premature *******.

that's Sunday sorted then.

SOLD
my heart to the first bidder
hope they ease the pain and make it less bitter

SOLD
my soul to the devil himself
in this world of misery he grants eternal wealth

SOLD
my love to the moon and the stars
when night falls they take me places near yet far

SOLD
my courage to the leader of fear
anxiety is a demon i've made friends with, my dear

SOLD
my beauty to the black mirror
she shows me my selfish self so much clearer

SOLD
my body to the man with dark eyes
let him ****** me with his dreamy web of lies

SOLD
my happiness to the depression
let my mind be enveloped by blackness each session

they said i could be whatever i wanted
but how is that true when i am still haunted
the ghosts of who i used to be
prey on my aura without mercy

I sold my soul

I sold my soul again last night
Six times up on the block
I traded for a friend of mine
I thought it was a lock

Don't speak to me of Jesus
Don't speak of what is fair
I sold my soul again last night
For a friend no longer there

Cancer took him early
He had so much more to give
I sold my soul again last night
In hopes that he would live

I guess the devil owns me
At least he comes to talk
God, just is a bully
But the devil walks the walk

My friend won't be forgotten
Of this fact I am sure
I sold my soul again today
To make sure someone finds a cure

Bouazizi’s heavy eyelids parted as the Muezzin recited the final call for the first Adhan of the day.

“As-salatu Khayrun Minan-nawm”
Prayer is better than sleep

Rising from the torment of another restless night, Bouazizi wiped the sleep from his droopy eyes as his feet touched the cold stone floor.

Throughout the frigid night, the devilish jinn did their work, eagerly jabbing away at Bouazizi with pointed sticks, tormenting his troubled conscience with the worry of his nagging indebtedness. All night the face of the man Bouazizi owed money to haunted him. Bouazizi could see the man’s greasy lips and brown teeth jawing away, inches from his face. He imagined chubby caffeine stained fingers reaching toward him to grab some dinars from Bouazizi’s money box.

Bouazizi turned all night like he was sleeping on a board of spikes. His prayers for a restful night again went unanswered. The pall of a blue fatigue would shadow Bouazizi for most of the day.

Bouazizi’s weariness was compounded by a gnawing hunger. By force of habit, he grudgingly opened the food cupboard with the foreknowledge that it was almost bare. Bouazizi’s premonition proved correct as he surveyed a meager handful of chickpeas, some eggs and a few sparse loaves. It was just enough to feed his dependant family; younger brothers and sisters, cousins and a terminally disabled uncle. That left nothing for Bouazizi but a quick jab to his empty gut. He would start this day without breakfast.

Bouazizi made a living as a street vendor. He hustles to survive. Bouazizi’s father died in a construction accident in Libya when he was three. Since the age of 10, Bouazizi had pushed a cart through the streets of Sidi Bouzid; selling fruit at the public market just a few blocks from the home that he has lived in for almost his entire life.

At 27 years of age, Bouazizi has wrestled the beast of deprivation since his birth. To date, he has bravely fought it to a standstill; but day after day the multi-headed hydra of life has snapped at him. He has squarely met the eyes of the beast with fortitude and resolve; but the sharp fangs of a hardscrabble life has sunken deep into Bouazizi’s spleen. The unjust rules of society are powerful claws that slash away at his flesh, bleeding him dry: while the spiked tendrils of poverty wrap Bouazizi’s neck, seeking to strangle him.

Bouazizi is a workingman hero; a skilled warrior in the fight for daily bread. He is accustomed to living a life of scarcity. His daily deliverance is the grace of another day of labor and the blessed wages of subsistence.

Though Allah has blessed this man with fortitude the acuteness of terminal want and the constant struggle to survive has its limits for any man; even for strong champions like Bouazizi.

This morning as Bouazizi washed he peered into a mirror, closely examining new wrinkles on his stubble strewn face. He fingered his deep black curls dashed with growing streaks of gray. He studied them through the gaze of heavy bloodshot eyes. He looked upward as if to implore Allah to salve the bruises of daily life.

Bouazizi braced himself with the splash of a cold water slap to his face. He wiped his cheeks clean with the tail of his shirt. He dipped his toothbrush into a box of baking powder and scoured an aching back molar in need of a root canal. Bouazizi should see a dentist but it is a luxury he cannot afford so he packed an aspirin on top of the infected tooth. The dissolving aspirin invaded his mouth coating his tongue with a bitter effervescence.

Bouazizi liked the taste and was grateful for the expectation of a dulled pain. He smiled into the mirror to check his chipped front tooth while pinching a cigarette **** from an ashtray. The roach had one hit left in it. He lit it with a long hard drag that consumed a good part of the filter. Bouazizi’s first smoke of the day was more filter then tobacco but it shocked his lungs into the coughing flow of another day.

Bouazizi put on his jacket, slipped into his knockoff NB sneakers and reached for a green apple on a nearby table. He took a big bite and began to chew away the pain of his toothache.

Bouazizi stepped into the street to catch the sun rising over the rooftops. He believed that seeing the sunrise was a good omen that augured well for that day’s business. A sunbeam braking over a far distant wall bathed Bouazizi in a golden light and illumined the alley where he parked his cart holding his remaining stock of week old apples. He lifted the handles and backed his cart out into the street being extra mindful of the cracks in the cobblestone road. Bouazizi sprained his ankle a week ago and it was still tender. Bouazizi had to be careful not to aggravate it with a careless step. Having successfully navigated his cart into the road, Bouazizi made a skillful U Turn and headed up the street limping toward the market.

A winter chill gripped Bouazizi prompting him to zip his jacket up to his neck. The zipper pinched his Adam’s Apple and a few droplets of blood stained his green corduroy jacket. Though it was cold, Bouazizi sensed that spring would arrive early this year triggering a replay of a recurring daydream. Bouazizi imagined himself behind the wheel of a new van on his way to the market. Fresh air and sunshine pouring through the open windows with the cargo space overflowing with fresh vegetables and fruits.

It was a lifelong ambition of Bouazizi to own a van. He dreamed of buying a six cylinder Dodge Caravan. It would be painted red and he would call it The Red Flame. The Red Flame would be fast and powerful and sport chrome spinners. The Red Flame would be filled with music from a Blaupunkt sound system with kick *** speakers. Power windows, air conditioning, leather seats, a moonroof and plenty of space in the back for his produce would complete Bouazizi’s ride.

The Red Flame would be the vehicle Bouazizi required to expand his business beyond the market square. Bouazizi would sell his produce out of the back of the van, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood. No longer would he have to wait for customers to come to his stand in the market. Bouazizi would go to his customers. Bouazizi and the Red Flame would be known in all the neighborhoods throughout the district. Bouazizi shook his head and smiled thinking about all the girls who would like to take rides in the Red Flame. Bouazizi and his Red Flame would be a sight to be noticed and a force to be reckoned with.

“EEEEEYOWWW” a Mercedes horn angrily honked; jarring Bouazizi from the reverie of his daydream. A guy whipping around the corner like a silver streak stuck his head out the window blasting with music yelling, “Hey Mnayek, watch where you push that *******.”

The music faded as the Mercedes roared away. “Barra nikk okhtek” Bouazizi yelled, raising his ******* in the direction of the vanished car. “The big guys in the fancy cars think the road belongs to them”, Bouazizi mumbled to himself.

The insult ****** Bouazizi off, but he was accustomed to them and as he limped along pushing his cart he distracted himself with the amusement of the ascending sun chasing the fleeting shadows of the night, sending them scurrying down narrow alleyways.

Bouazizi imaged himself a character from his favorite movie. He was a giant Transformer, chasing the black shadows of evil away from the city into the desert. After battling evil and conquering the bad guys, he would transform himself back into the regular Bouazizi; selling his produce to the people as he patrolled the highways of Tunisia in the Red Flame, the music blasting out the windows, the chrome spinners flashing in the sunlight. Bouazizi would remain vigilant, always ready to transform the Red Flame to fight the evil doers.

The bumps and potholes in the road jostled Bouazizi’s load of apples. A few fell out of the wooden baskets and were rolling around in the open spaces of the cart. Bouazizi didn’t want to risk bruising them. Damaged merchandise can’t be sold so he was careful to secure his goods and arrange his cart to appeal to women customers. He made sure to display his prized electronic scale in the corner of the cart for all to see.

Bouazizi had a reputation as a fair and generous dealer who always gave good value to his customers. Bouazizi was also known for his kindness. He would give apples to hungry children and families who could not pay. Bouazizi knew the pain of hunger and it brought him great satisfaction to be able to alleviate it in others.

As a man who valued fairness, Bouazizi was particularly proud of his electronic scale. Bouazizi was certain the new measuring device assured all customers that Bouazizi sold just and correct portions. The electronic scale was Bouazizi’s shining lamp. He trusted it. He hung it from the corner post of his cart like it was the beacon of a lighthouse guiding shoppers through the treachery of an unscrupulous market. It would attract all customers who valued fairness to the safe harbor of Bouazizi’s cart.

The electronic scale is Bouazizi’s assurance to his customers that the weights and measures of electronic calculation layed beyond any cloud of doubt. It is a fair, impartial and objective arbiter for any dispute.

Bouazizi believed that the fairness of his scale would distinguish his stand from other produce vendors. Though its purchase put Bouazizi into deep debt, the scale was a source of pride for Bouazizi who believed that it would help his profits to increase and help him to achieve his goal of buying the Red Flame.

As Bouazizi pushed his cart toward the market, he mulled his plan over in his mind for the millionth time. He wasn't great in math but he was able to calculate his financial situation with a degree of precision. His estimations triggered worries that his growing debt to money lenders may be difficult to payoff.

Indebtedness pressed down on Bouazizi’s chest like a mounting pile of stones. It was the source of an ever present fear coercing Bouazizi to live in a constant state of anxiety. His business needed to grow for Bouazizi to get a measure of relief and ultimately prosper from all his hard work. Bouazizi was driven by urgency.

The morning roil of the street was coming alive. Bouazizi quickened his step to secure a good location for his cart at the market. Car horns, the spewing diesel from clunking trucks, the flatulent roar of accelerating buses mixed with the laughs and shrieks of children heading to school composed the rising crescendo of the city square.

As he pushed through the market, Bouazizi inhaled the aromatic eddies of roasting coffee floating on the air. It was a pleasantry Bouazizi looked forward to each morning. The delicious wafts of coffee mingling with the crisp aroma of baking bread instigated a growl from Bouazizi’s empty stomach. He needed to get something to eat. After he got money from his first sale he would by a coffee and some fried dough.

Activity in the market was vigorous, punctuated by the usual arguments of petty territorial disputes between vendors. The disagreements were always amicably resolved, burned away in rising billows of roasting meats and vegetables, the exchange of cigarettes and the plumes of tobacco smoke rising as emanations of peace.

Bouazizi skillfully maneuvered his cart through the market commotion. He slid into his usual space between Aaban and Aameen. His good friend Aaban sold candles, incense, oils and sometimes his wife would make cakes to sell. Aameen was the markets most notorious jokester. He sold hardware and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Aaban was already burning a few sticks of jasmine incense. It helped to attract customers. The aroma defined the immediate space with the pleasant bouquet of a spring garden. Bouazizi liked the smell and appreciated the increased traffic it brought to his apple cart.

“Hey Basboosa#, do you have any cigarettes?“, Aameen asked as he pulled out a lighter. Bouazizi shook the tip of a Kent from an almost empty pack. Aameen grabbed the cigarette with his lips.

“That's three cartons of Kents you owe me, you cheap *******.” Bouazizi answered half jokingly. Aameen mumbled a laugh through a grin tightly gripping the **** as he exhaled smoke from his nose like a fire breathing dragon. Bouazizi also took out a cigarette for himself.

“Aameem, give me a light”, Bouazizi asked.

Aameen tossed him the lighter.

“Keep it Basboosa. I got others.” Aameen smiled as he showed off a newly opened box of disposable lighters to sell on his stand.

“Made in China, Basboosa. They make everything cheap and colorful. I can make some money with these.”

Bouazizi lit his next to last cigarette. He inhaled deeply. The smoke chased away the cool air in Bouazizi’s lungs with a shot of a hot nicotine rush.

“Merci Aameen” Bouazizi answered. He put the lighter into the almost empty cigarette pack and put it into his hip pocket. The lighter would protect his last cigarette from being crushed.

The laughter and shouts of the bazaar, the harangue of radio voices shouting anxious verses of Imam’s exhorting the masses to submit and the piecing ramble of nondescript AM music flinging piercing unintelligible static surrounded Bouazizi and his cart as he waited for his first customers of the day.

Bouazizi sensed a nervous commotion rise along the line of vendors. A crowd of tourists and locals milling about parted as if to avoid a slithering asp making its way through their midst. The hoots of vendors and the cackle of the crowd made its way to Bouazizi’s knowing ear. He knew what was coming. It was nothing more then another shakedown by city officials acting as bagmen for petty municipal bureaucrats. They claim to be checking vendor licences but they’re just making the rounds collecting protection money from the vendors. Pocketing bribes and payoffs is the municipal authorities idea of good government. They are skilled at using the power of their office to extort tribute from the working poor.

Bouazizi made the mistake of making eye contact with Madame Hamdi. As the municipal authority in charge of vendors and taxis Madame Hamdi held sway over the lives of the street vendors. She relished the power she had over the men who make a meager living selling goods in the square; and this morning she was moving through the market like a bloodhound hot on the trail of an escaped convict. Two burly henchmen lead the way before her. Bouazizi knew Madame Hamdi’s hounds were coming for him.

Bouazizi knew he was ******. Having just made a payment to his money lender, Bouazizi had no extra dinars to grease the palm of Madame Hamdi. He grabbed the handle bars of his cart to make an escape; but Madame Hamdi cut him off and got right into into Bouazizi’s face.

“Ah little Basboosa where are you going? she asked with the tone of playful contempt.

“I suppose you still have no license to sell, ah Basboosa?” Madame Hamdi questioned with the air of a soulless inquisitor.

“You know Madame Hamdi, cart vendors do not need a license.” Bouazizi feebly protested, not daring to look into her eyes.

“Basboosa, you know we can overlook your violations with a small fine for your laxity” a dismissive Madame Hamdi offered.

Bouazizi’s sense of guilt would not permit him to lift his eyes. His head remained bowed. Bouazizi stood convicted of being one of the impoverished.

“I have no spare dinars to offer Madame Hamdi, My pockets are empty, full of holes. My money falls into everyone’s palm but my own. I’m sorry Madame Hamdi. I’ll take my cart home”. He lifted the handlebars in an attempt to escape. One of Madame Hamdi’s henchmen stepped in front of his cart while the other pushed Bouazizi away from it.

“Either you pay me a vendor tax for a license or I will confiscate your goods Basboosa”, Madame Hamdi warned as she lifted Bouazizi’s scale off its hook.

“This will be the first to go”, she said grinning as she examined the scale. “We’ll just keep this.”
Like a mother lion protecting a defenseless cub from the snapping jaws of a pack of ravenous hyenas, Bouazizi lunged to retrieve his prized scale from the clutches of Madame Hamdi. Reaching for it, he touched the scale with his fingertips just as Madame Hamdi delivered a vicious slap to Bouazizi’s cheek. It halted him like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

A henchman overturned Bouazizi’s cart, scatter

I once sold a hair straightener to a woman going through keemo

I once sold a a weight loss supplement to a girl struggling with anoerexia.

I once sold female libido enhancers to a forty year old man.

Sold a car to a Parapalegic

Sold a telephone to a deff woman.

I once sold a child an imaginary friend.
And a Vaccuum for their sandbox.

I once sold a soul to a telemarketing company.

They paid me in biweekly installments.
And they got a hell of a deal.