LOCAL ANGLES: BIG-CITY HOME NEVER OFFERED TREATMENT LIKE THIS

There are days when a city just doesn't look or feel right.

That's the impression I got the last time I visited St. Louis.

Although I grew up in St. Louis and enjoy an occasional visit, every now and then the city will seem just a tad off kilter. Last weekend it felt like abuse from Kathy Bates in Stephen King's "Misery."

The first hint that this was going to be a strange weekend arrived when I tried to call a friend on a pay phone in the south part of town. I'm having a normal conversation when suddenly this man with a grocery bag starts shouting at me. I'm thinking perhaps he's yelling at someone I can't see, so I try to ignore him. But that becomes impossible because the guy gets closer to me and is actually shouting even louder.

He says, "Excuse me. I said excuse me." He's got a real scowl on his face.

Now I look at him with a disgusted demeanor and try my best to let him know I'm not going to end the phone conversation any sooner than he would like just to accommodate an impatient bum.

"Could I bother you for a few seconds?" shouts the bum, his request dripping with sarcasm. "I need some spare change to get some gas," he said, never bothering to show me which car or truck would be running on this gas.

I'm still trying to have a phone conversation, but I can't even hear my friend because the impatient bum refuses to relent.

By now he's trying to show me how impatient he is by staring at his watch while releasing this gastrointestinal gasp. Obviously he wants to show me how difficult I'm making his request. "I don't have any spare change," I tell the guy. "I'm broke, get it! Now get out of my face!"

As I say this, I'm realizing that his watch looks nicer than mine. He decides not to invest any more time in what is by now a lost cause, so he grabs his grocery bag and storms off in a huff.

The next interesting thing I see when I'm driving around is someone claiming he's homeless. He's asking for a food handout. The request for free food is written on a cardboard sign. It looks to me like the guy has fairly good handwriting and maybe even some artistic skills. He also has a decent tan. I'm wondering if we share the same definition of homeless.

I feel like rolling down my window and asking him if he's tried maybe filling out an application at a fast-food restaurant. Even if they turn him down maybe he could ask to sample their Big Macs. In other words, get a little more creative. Maybe even draw signs for the guy holding the grocery bag.

I would like to just forget about the homeless guy and the impatient bum, but I still feel a little mad that it didn't take much to convince him I was flat broke. Why couldn't he at least put up an argument?

Oh well, I can dismiss this because by now I've reached the downtown hotel where I'm scheduled to attend a journalism seminar. I'm supposed to sign up for some sessions. Finally something that makes sense.

I decide to use the elevator to make sure I can get there as quickly as possible. Before I can reach my destination, however, the elevator stops twice, once on the ninth floor and again on the seventh floor. Once it stopped, opened wide, and then closed with no one waiting to get on or off.

Once again I hit the LL to reach the lower level. But the closest I can get to that is the main lobby. This machine simply refuses to follow my instructions.

So what do I do? I press harder on the buttons. You've got to be stern with machines that have an attitude.

Three women are on the elevator by now. It's obvious we all need to get to the same place because they keep hitting LL. "Oh no, we're being held hostage by a mad elevator," jokes one of the women.

After several futile attempts to reach the lower level fail, however, the joke no longer seems funny. We all decide to just take the stairs, which lead to a room that looks like it's being used for a tire convention. This is not where I needed to sign up.

When I finally run into a few of my colleagues, I ask them if they had any trouble with the elevator. When it becomes obvious they had no difficulty at all, I just pretend like I didn't either.

Someone asks why I'm out of breath. "I needed the exercise, so I decided to take the stairs," I tell them. "I even got to strengthen my calf muscles by kicking some tires along the way."

Oh that's right, one of them says, you grew up here. You probably feel right at home in this city.

Not today, I say under my breath. Even the tires are kicking back.

~Bill Heitland is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.