I suppose it’s true, no good deed goes unpunished. Sometimes when I walk down 41st Street, I give a homeless guy some change. He calls me soldier, usually compliments me on what I’m wearing and comments on my smoking a cigar. He seems like a nice guy and I always try to give him some change when I can. This happens after work most nights.

Today work wasn’t busy at all and I tried to leave at 3:00 with Vivek’s permission. He was busy since he’s going to India tomorrow and coming back on Tuesday. But things being what they are, I didn’t leave at 3:00. I tried to but as I was headed out the door I heard my phone ring.

So I run to my desk and my jacket gets caught on the edge of the cubicle, tearing off a button off my suit jacket. No problem, even though I can’t sew to save my life I scooped up the button and put it in my pocket.

The phone call was from this crazy psycho Vietnamese chick who has been calling me most every day since May 2007. I’ll come into work and find my voice mailbox would be filled with messages in Vietnamese of this chick screaming, crying and mumbling.

Today when I answered the phone she was crying in English, which she does speak on occasion, ‘what did you do to my computer?’ I told her that I didn’t know anything about her computer and that she was a stupid bitch.

Then I headed out the door, enjoying a Padron and walking across town. Bought a refrigerator magnet of Barack Obama outside of Grand Central Station and headed to the bus terminal. As I approached the homeless guy I reached into my pocket and gave him almost a dollar in change. Make that almost a dollar, plus a button.

I didn’t realize that I gave him the button until I got into the bus terminal. I figured I’ll take the suit to the dry cleaners and have them sew a new button on. I go to the ‘new’ dry cleaner around the block, they do the cleaning on premises and they do it green, meaning environmentally safe.

I tell the gent behind the counter about the button and he looks at me and asks if I have an extra one. I told him if I had an extra one I would have brought it. I also told him it doesn’t have to be the same button, just the same size. He tells me he couldn’t do it.

I wind up walking to another dry cleaner around the block and give the same spiel. This gent tells me that he could probably match the size but it wouldn’t be the same. I tell him to just take off the other two buttons and sew three new ones which is what I could have told the first guy.

I also could have turned around and went back to the homeless guy and asked him to check his cup for a button but since it was a Friday and I was just about 100 yards from my bus I obviously decided not to. Not the end of the world after all.

Just heard from a mutual friend of mine and Pedro’s, Excer. Excer called Pedro to find out what would be going on for tomorrow, but it turns out Pedro is still sick so no Otisville this weekend. Excer mentioned next weekend but I won’t be able to go then since I’m taking Juan to see Girl Talk next Saturday for his birthday.

I am having dinner with Excer tomorrow night instead and I’ll tell him then, unless he reads this first but I find that doubtful.