Robinson has been too busy to shave, or unzip his pants to piss, since business picked up

By Phil O’Donoghue

Special to Broken World News
SILVER SPRING, MD – Local homeless man Michael Robinson outperformed analysts’ expectations last week, posting a 31.4% increase in Q2 profits from the previous year. Robinson credits the positive return to his new begging location by the Safeway’s Coinstar machine.

“It always comes down to supply and demand,” explained the scraggly 54 year-old who still takes dumps between cars in the parking lot. “I position myself next to the largest supplier of loose change and then I demand it.”

It was a record-setting quarter that almost never happened for the local entrepreneur. After 18 years of peddling by Georgia Avenue off I-495, Robinson was forced to relocate when construction on the exit ramp commenced in February.

“I had a good gig for me by the highway,” Robinson said as the stench of spoiled yogurt emanated from his lice-filled beard. “The red light was excruciatingly long, as was my eye contact.”

Cast into the unknown, Robinson puttered around town trying to adapt to his circumstances with different marketing campaigns. When two days of washing windshields between lights yielded no results, Robinson was at a loss.

“My operating costs were out of control and you can’t have that in this business,” explained the man who had not changed his pants after soiling himself weeks earlier. “I had run out of options when serendipity slapped me in the face at Safeway.”

That slap, as it turned out, was a 9 year-old girl dumping her piggy bank into the Coinstar machine with her mother and the sight made Robinson believe he had a comeback still in him.

“Quarters, Pocahontas coins…it was a scene, man.”

It did not take long for the new location to yield results. As soon as Robinson implemented a sorrowful stare down by the Coinstar machine, money started rolling in. He estimates that over 18% of Coinstar patrons make a contribution to his cause – far greater than the national average of 2.3%.

“I’m raking in around 4 figures a year,” beamed the jovial Robinson while sipping the bottom of a Colt 45 malt liquor he found in the trash. “And that’s net of taxes”.