One fine night, me and my roommate Mark decided to enjoy the summer air and drive over to Checkers for dinner. Checkers, if you're not familiar with it, is a fast food restaurant similar to McDonalds, but with one important difference: there's no dine-in area. If you're not driving-through, you have to buy your food at the walk-up window and eat it outside. Look at this picture to get an idea of how it works.

The big problem with the outdoors concept is that the homeless people are right there waiting to beg from you, and you have nowhere to escape from their clutches. Needless to say, as soon as I went to order, two vile-looking drifters floated over to me, and the leader began demanding my change while I waited in line:

"You got 75 cent? 75 cent!!"

I tried to ignore him, but he would have none of that, and kept on rambling:

"Yo man, you don't look like you're from here. Where you from?"

Being unwise to his bum schemes, I told him I was from Mundelein, a tiny suburb of Chicago, 1500 miles away.

"Oh! Munderlein! I been up there before! Great town, Munderlein. Yeah...", he confided.

"Yeah, man, we been there... You a big guy, you playin' football?", asked the other bum.

Impressed by their flattery and apparent knowledge of my hometown, I handed over all my spare change, which wasn't a lot. I received my order, and headed back to the car. Then disaster struck: I got the wrong order! I had asked for a plain burger, and they gave me one with everything on it!

Dreading the inevitable, I went back to the window. Immediately, the itinerants leapt from the shadows to see if I was returning with more change. I explained the problem to the cashier, who took my burger back and went to get a replacement.

"What are you dooooin!? You're not gonna throw that away, are ya? It's still good!", Captain Bum screamed at the employee.

"I'm sorry, I can't give it to you. It's our policy to throw away returned food.", the employee noted.

While the policy may seem cruel, it was sadly necessary, to protect against food tampering, and in order to keep the homeless from overrunning the place. Captain Bum, however, did not share this point of view and proceeded to assault the restaurant; leaping half-way through the window in an effort to grab the bag. Two more employees rushed over to close and lock the window on him; with the practiced ease of people who are used to such a routine. The Captain, ever gracious in defeat, let out a string of profanities to anyone who would listen. I got my replacement meal and took off as fast as possible. Although Captain Bum was now just a belligerent fading speck in my rear-view mirror, I knew that he would always have a place in my heart.

(note: I did not have a camera with me that day to capture the bum's winning smile, so I borrowed the above photo from Bumhunt.com, your #1 source for bum-related information. Thanks, Bumhunt.)