Mailbag!

Yes, I've been silent for almost a year, but that wasn't really the plan.  I've been wanting to do a mailbag post, and I finally got my first letter today!

"Hey Tony, do hobos have surprise parties?  Thanks.  PS - I love the blog.  I check it every day.  Keep up the great work!  Nick L."

First off, thanks for the letter, Nick.  Let me answer your question with a question--what do you think would happen if you were to surprise a hobo?  That's right, you'd get stabbed in the neck before you even got to "--PRISE!"

So no, hobos definitely do not have surprise parties.  In fact, they go out of their way to make sure that everybody knows when a party is going to happen, just so nobody accidentally happens upon it.

If you think about it, it's probably good that hobos don't have phones or alarm clocks, because I'm betting both of those would be cause for concern.  Every time their phone or alarm would go off, they'd just start stabbing.

I can't imagine there's many things worse than sleeping next to a hobo knowing that you have to wake up before he does or else you'll be stabbed repeatedly as said hobo thinks you're the snooze corpus.

I'm guessing bunking in a boxcar doesn't lend itself to getting good sleep anyway, let alone having to worry about Snuffy Bob rising and shining 46 times in your chest, neck, face and abdomen.

Thanks for the letter, Nick.  Please send more!

Question

Do hobos pull pranks on eachother?

A common prank among skydivers is to pack somebody's parachute full of silverware. I wonder if hobos do the same with a bindle.

Although I'm guessing it wouldn't be a wise move to have one hobo having a bindle full of silverware, as some of that stuff is bound to be knives, and the spoons can easily be fashioned into hobo shivs. And forks came out of the womb with stabbing potential.

It's probably safe to say that if hobos do pull pranks, it wouldn't involve depleting their own knife supply while simultaneously increasing somebody else's--no matter how damn funny it would be.

When I was like seven-years old, I was sleeping one night and my brother woke me to tell me that the school bus was here, so I got up and headed for the porch in order to catch the bus. I think you could probably do something similar to a sleeping hobo, but I'm guessing you have to beware the consequences of a pranked hobo.

You would probably want to guard your soft middle parts from an angry stabbing. A pie pan or cookie sheet would have to be popular choices in my opinion.

I've also heard tales of hobos fashioning chainmail out of pennies. "Penny-mail" is inexpensive, as it only costs you the amount of pennies you choose to use and a little bit of wire. As with most attire, however, the fatter you are, the more expensive your gear. Fortunately, the fattest hobo on record only weighed 158 pounds.

What about the old "shaving cream in the sleeping hand" prank? In my opinion, this would be a very cruel prank to play as most hobos sleep with their knives taped into their hands, so somebody could very easily lose an eye.

I guess that's why they say "Let sleeping hobos lie."

Sounds like good advice.