Don’t expect to get much spare change there for a while.

Yesterday, I drove up to the north part of Minneapolis to visit some friends whose house got hit by the tornado over the weekend. You could tell they’d already done a lot of cleaning up because there was a huge pile of branches and random pieces of trash at the edge of the road where the city will eventually pick it up.

I’ve had very limited experience when it comes to natural disasters, so what I saw was… wow. I can only imagine what it was like for people who’d been living there for years. I was driving down the street toward their house and about a block north, everything looked fine. I mean fine. There were a couple pieces of junk that had been scattered around—probably blown there from someplace else—but the trees still had leaves on them. Hell, they still had branches on them. Not so much when I got to the Porter house.

Marie brought me inside and showed me around a little. The main floor… pretty much untouched. Aside from a hole in the kitchen ceiling that was caused by water damage (which eventually got into the basement), it wasn’t too bad. It was safe to use the bathroom and everything. Upstairs, they had a small deck that was demolished by a tree, there were a couple holes in the roof… given where the cracks were at the top of the north wall, they think the tornado might have lifted the roof slightly and set it back down again.

Outside, there were trees down all over the neighborhood. The big ones that managed to stay upright were lucky to have branches that were more than a couple feet long before they snapped off. No leaves, no small branches, no more huge black walnut tree in their backyard because it got pushed down by the wind. At the end of the night, it started getting cold because there was a wind blowing and nothing to break it. I think all of the houses on their block were still standing, so I wouldn’t call it “devastation”, but it was bad.

Marie had been sitting on the front step waiting for “vultures”, the people who passed out flyers offering repair services, landscaping, etc. The neighborhood was a disaster area, so they swooped in to pick at the remains and make some money from desperate people. She was pissed. The tornado happened on Sunday, it was Wednesday, but they kept coming.

The first vehicle that stopped in front of the house while I was there was a truck from the Red Cross. I waved, they waved back, then stopped and asked if we wanted any water or sandwiches. Marie and Porter got a couple bottles of water, then the truck started driving down the street again to see if other people needed anything. That was awesome. Thanks, Red Cross.

A while after they dropped by, Marie and I headed to the store to buy a replacement chain for a chainsaw and some chain and brake oil. On the trip, we decided to buy some vulture repellent: water balloons. Unfortunately, she was inside filling the balloons when the only vulture of the day stopped by to harass us.

We had other ways of scaring them off. Jen Fairchild got up in his face and asked what the fuck he was doing there. He kept asking to see the homeowner and she got closer and closer during her… very insistent questioning. When Porter finally showed up, he demanded to see the guy’s peddler’s license. (Apparently, the police told Marie and Porter that if someone dropped by who didn’t have a license, they should call 911. I’m not kidding.)

The vulture showed them a Brooklyn Park license and said they had one for Minneapolis as well. Jen took a picture of him and the license with her cell phone, then they shooed him away in an extremely rude and appropriate manner. (Hey, I hadn’t been dealing with that shit for the last three days and I thought he was a nuisance.) As he started walking down the street (without stopping at anyone else’s house), he turned and said, “Take another picture.” Jen followed him and asked him to stop so she could.

He finally got to the bottom of the hill, the end of their block, and met two other vultures there. Jen got some pictures, then started walking back to the house. I thought the whole incident was kinda funny, but couldn’t see what was going on at that point because of the large piles of branches and stuff on the side of the road. When I stepped out between some of the cars, I saw three people at the bottom of the hill starting to walk up. When I headed down toward Jen, they turned around and walked away.

Both of us agreed that was one of those instances where we almost wished I hadn’t walked out into the street when I did. She knew they were behind her… she’s 5’4″ and on the heavy side… what would three guys do to her? Or what if I’d poked my head out a minute later when they were halfway up the hill and couldn’t casually turn around and pretend they weren’t following her? We’re probably better off not knowing, but still…

There wasn’t much more excitement during the rest of the evening, so some of you may be wondering where the title of this post came from. Well, I’m sure there are plenty of people who can relate to this experience. When driving to Marie and Porter’s place, I got off the highway, headed up an exit ramp and stopped at a corner where someone was holding an “I’m homeless” sign. When I saw him—even before I had seen the damage the tornado caused just a mile from that corner—I thought, “This is the wrong area to be begging because you don’t have a house.”