Roast beef sandwich man « laurenoutloud.com

There’s a wily-haired man with glasses who sells things at the corner of King and Strachan. Strange things. Usually, they are edible things.

I am fascinated by this man, and in the past 6 months have grown to… kind of become friends with him. We chat regularly, but he never remembers who I am or that we’ve met. It’s all good. He’s hilar.

I call him Roast Beef Sandwich Man because the first time I encountered him, he tried to sell me a roast beef sandwich at the gas station.

“Wanna buy a roast beef sandwich?” he shouted at me as he skittered up to me at the pump. “It’s real good. Real good roast beef.”

“No thanks…” I said, a little bit freaked out and annoyed by the stranger who’d just approached me in the wild. People don’t do that in Toronto. They just don’t.

“You like roast beef? Come on… it’s roast beef!”

“NO!” I told him. “I don’t like roast beef and I don’t want that sandwich!”

“Okay, bye bye!”

And just like that, he was on to the next pump. The next prospective sale. Completely unfazed.

I see him all the time now on my way to and from work.

He’s sketch as all heck, but reasonably friendly and always entertaining. It’s great fun to spot RBSM and see what he’s got up for sale at the time, because it’s always different and usually something strange.

The last time I encountered RBSM, he was peddling a package of weiners outside Shopper’s Drug Mart.

“Excuse me ma’am,” he drawled in an accent I still can’t pin down. “Wannah buy shum weinuhz?”

Of course not.

Another time, RBSM was offloading a box of chocolate milk. One that had already been opened.

A few weeks ago he was trying to sell a McChicken sandwich outside of the Palace Arms, and I had seen him try to pay for a streetcar ride with McPop earlier that day.

RBSM is a homeless dude, obviously.

I see him coming in and out of the big pink shelter on my bike ride to work sometimes and I feel like he might be addicted to something he can’t afford, based on the amount of scratching and meat pimping he does… but I can’t be certain and I certainly can’t judge.

We’re all addicted to something, aren’t we?

Anyhoo, I walked home from work today and it was a long and warm and delightfully eventful walk. Plus, a hair stylist at work had given me a cool braid and everybody was all “NICE HAIR” so I felt pretty fly, too

I was in a great mood by the time I got to King & Strachan, but thirstier than this sentence for a clever metaphor. So I bought some coconut water at the Shopppers at King & Strachan and sat down on a ledge outside to drink it.

Lo and behold, Roast Beef Sandwich Man pops up out of nowhere with a can of tuna.

“Excuse me dear, wanna buy a canna tuna?”

“No… I’m good. Sorry man. I don’t need tuna.” (I really don’t!)

“Okay… got a cigarette?”

“Sorry – I don’t smoke.”

“Got some money”

“Well.. yeah, I have a few bucks. Can I take your picture?”

“Sure, okay! Want me to sing you a song? I’ll sing you a song,”

Before I could even answer, he started singing something I didn’t know. Not much of a tune or melody but the words “song” and “sing” were in it, I can tell you that.

I took the photos in this post during RBSM’s performance and gave him a fiver for the pleasure. I figured it was worth it to prove to my friends that there is, in fact, a Roast Beef Sandwich Man and that he’s not a figment of my (admittedly overactive) imagination.

I’m not trying to appear uppity or angelic or make a statements about anything at all with this post. I just find this RBSM to be a cool character — one of many, many cool characters in my life.

I should start writing more about the people I know. I’m almost so overwhelmed with stuff to write about my own life that I don’t even know where to start… or if I want to.

Things are great — I’m getting everything I’ve ever wanted right now — but at what point does blogging turn into bragging? And at what point does bragging just get… so annoying?

Screw it. One brag: