Squatter House Boarded Up

Well, Yup-yup's been boarded up out of the house in which he was squatting. Saturday morning, after the 4-inch-ish snow (before the 8-inch-ish snow we got Saturday night), he was hanging around on the corner drunk as a skunk, hollering at passers-by and generally making a nuisance of himself.

I was shoveling off my front step. By the time I got to the bottom, he had waddled his way down the street and started into what was headed for a long diatribe. "Miss Maritza, you see they boarded up the house....I can work..."

"I know you can work," I said. "I want you to shovel the snow down there," I said, pointing at the house on the corner. (They never shovel. There was packed ice under the new snow there, the worst.)

"Sometimes I talk too much," he said, slightly ruefully.

"You don't have to go on. Just go ahead and get started."

He did the sidewalk over there very thoroughly. There were only two ice patches that were too deep to dig up without risking breaking the shovel, so I put salt on them. He went out in my backyard and dug out the back porch and the sidewalk to the alley. It got him off the street and toned down his incessant yapping (should I say yup-yupping) to a minimum.

That was one of the few times I've ever felt good about paying him for a job.