Sometimes they force you to be a prick

Tonight at the homeless shelter, there was a first for me: I threw someone out.

Recently, a new guest turned up: a stunningly arrogant and insulting 21-year-old. Granted, we were all pretty full of ourselves at that age, but this kid abused the privilege.

I do quite a bit around the shelter that I'm not required to do. For example, I've brought in a number of my personal DVDs and VHS tapes for the guests to watch. The other night, that kid was going through my movies and had something snotty to say about almost every one of them. A typical remark was, "This fuckin' Star Trek shit oughta go in the fire."

Other guests and staff member have had problems with the kid too, but I was willing to cut him some slack. After all, I reasoned, I was a lot like that at his age myself. Perhaps someday, I thought, he'll grow up and learn to be more sensitive toward people's feelings. Tonight, however, he pushed me way too far.

We have a rule at the shelter that once a guest has signed in for the night, they may not leave the property until the next morning. We have that rule in place because in past years, there were problems with guests leaving the grounds and coming back drunk or stoned and causing trouble for the staff and other guests. One guy, I'm told, even came back with a gun!

So when the kid asked if he could run out to Dunkin' Donuts for a Coolatta, I told him no and explained the above rule. He badgered me about it until I finally became exasperated and told him to get off my ass. Next thing I knew, he was gone.

Good, I thought. Maybe he won't come back. I should have been so lucky.

An hour later, he strutted through the door, a Coolatta cup in his left hand. I pointed at him and said, "You're not staying here tonight."

In an act of sheer cluelessness, the kid asked, "Why?"

"Why? Because you chose to break a rule after I took the time to explain it to you in detail! You want to symbolically give me the finger--fine! You're not staying here tonight. Get out."

"Where the fuck am I supposed to sleep?"

"That ain't my problem. You broke the rules, you did so knowingly, and you're not staying here tonight. End of story."

The kid was incredulous. "You're throwing me out 'cause I went to get a coffee?"

"No. I'm throwing you out because you think you can break the rules and get away with it. Now get the hell out of here before I call the cops."

He stormed out the door saying, "This is some fucked-up shit, man."

I still feel lousy about throwing the kid out into the chilly March night. But if I let him break the rules without consequence, then we'll soon have more guests who think they can do the same thing. And that simply cannot happen if we're serious about giving these people a safe place to spend the night.