Pubs are good. Sometimes I go to them, and just to be "one of the crowd" I might have a drink or two. Then I might see a tramp, and go over and talk to him. You know how it is!

It doesn't necessarily have to be a tramp, just a person significantly older than me. They do tend to be "trampy" though. Over one of the tramps menthol cigarettes (that he can somehow afford) I would ask him to share with me the wisdom that he has accumulated over his life. Said tramp/non-tramp will then chuckle.

And while I was just shaving my face I worked out why.....

Once you get a job, in a good deal of cases you will find yourself spending most of your life working to make money for someone else. You might spend a lot of time getting to and from work, waking up early for the good of the company. Going to bed early so you are "fresh". Generally putting yourself out. [see http://drudgery.blogspot.com to discover how it is all really a load of crap. Everything.]

Contrast this with when you were young. Everything was a breeze, and you pretty much knew it. If you knew then what it was like to be an old corporate slag, there is no way you would have wasted so much time doing crap like watching Anthea Turner make a Thunderbirds base on Blue Peter. There was so much more to do.

The old tramp was laughing because he knew that the only piece of advice he could give to anyone was to make the most of not having a job. And he knew it was too late for me. Well fuck him, because next year I'm unemployed again. That foiled the smelly bastard's plans.