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“So … you wanna sell our pencils, do you?”
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This is based on a trope that doesn’t really happen any more. Rather than begging, homeless people would sell things and pencils was a common item. The joke is that they were really representatives of a big pencil conglomerate and would be fortunate to be able to go into pencil retailing.
I ran into a homeless dude in Chicago selling tourist magazines, I told him I didn’t need a magazine but appreciated he was at least not just asking for money and gave him some cash anyway.
Streetwise has been a thing in Chicago for decades as well!
The Danish counterpart, Hus Forbi
The Big Issue is the UK equivalent. Evidently both were inspired by Street News in NYC, which is the the first with that purpose.
Please explain ☹️
Here’s my guess.
Guy is poor, just needs money, and is desperatly attempting to get a job as a pencil salesman. This is a job it’s hard to be passionate about. My boy now needs to convince this richo boss dude that he’s passionate about pencils to get this job
Otherwise I’m lost too. If cows made tools they’d be pretty useless you know
Cow tools would have amazing collector’s value, though, and you could put the cows to work for the price of hay.