Circa May 1998

So one day in London my friend Andrew and I decided to go see the musical "Rent" at the Shaftesbury Theatre. We bought our tix at the Half Price Ticket Booth and hurried to the Theatre as the show was to start shortly. However, neither of us had eaten anything yet so we thought we should get a snack to eat as we walked there. I got a piece of pizza, I think, which I ate en route. However, Andrew stopped in Pret A Manger and decided he had to have Sushi.

Well, that's all well and good but not something to try to eat while walking at a brisk pace (with chopstix!).

Needless to say he couldn't really eat it while walking so once we arrived at the theatre we decided to sit in the park across from the theatre for a few minutes so he could eat. It was just a tiny park in the middle of the street with a few benches to sit on.

As soon as we sat down, a dirty and tattered homeless looking man shuffled up to us and started staring at Andrew and sniffing around us and just generally hovering over us. We tried to ignore him but soon he was like practically standing on Andrew.

The man asked Andrew "what's that?!" in a slightly curious/slightly grossed out tone of voice, motioning to his sushi.

"Sushi," answered Andrew, "do you want to try some?"

"Yeah," said the guy as he took a piece. We hoped he would go away then but he didn't. He started to chew it a bit but then all of the sudden just spat it out, pretty much right on Andrew's feet.

Okay I was ready to leave at this point as the guy seemed kind of aggressive and either drunken or looney. But Andrew was still just trying to eat his food and ignore the guy.

All of the sudden out of nowhere comes this OTHER drunken/crazy sounding homeless guy and he starts YELLING at the sushi-spitter.

"Hey you, don't do that to people! You can't spit food on people! Get out of here!" said homeless man number 2, and he proceeded to chase sushi-spitter out of the little park we were sitting in.

We sat there undisturbed for about a minute and then before we knew it sushi-spitter had returned, but this time he was wielding a broken off bottle which he was swinging as he rushed towards homeless man number two.

I took that as my cue to get out of there and I ran across the street to the theatre at that point leaving Andrew behind me but he soon followed. Whew!

Didn't stay to find out what happened, as we had to hurry up and take our seats for the show anyway. Overall, I think this pre-show excitement was more interesting than the musical, though a bit too close for comfort.