The joke is that in Larson's world the people selling pencils on the street aren't just poor or disabled people trying to make some money, they're actually hired and employed by the pencil manufacturer.
Yup! I wouldn’t have chosen the word “hustle;” it has connotations of a rip-off. I think most people were aware that there was a mark-up, but it felt more capitalist than simply giving someone a hand-out.
I wonder how much of a real niche this filled, though. Maybe you could buy a box of ten for a nickel, and one from a homeless person for a penny; but you only had to spend a penny, a single pencil would last you a couple of days, and you’d have enough left of your nickel for a cup of coffee. Plus, you were aware of the charitable aspect. Or maybe you really couldn’t afford to spend a whole nickel on a box of pencils. I suspect, though, it was more the charity thing.
It’s always been so hard for the psychically deaf to get ahead in this world… Getting discriminated against in job interviews, having to hustle pencils on the side of the street. All because we can’t move shit with our minds or speak without our mouths.
My co-workers are always talking to each other telepathically when I’m around, laughing about their psychic in-jokes, knowing I can’t hear them. It’s honestly so rude. They’re probably making fun of me in there, tossing mean comments in the conduit between their attuned minds 😠
Well guess what? The psychically deaf are just as good as the psychics! There’s nothing they can do with their minds that we can’t do with good old fashioned human muscle 😤 we deserve respect!
I’m interpreting as this man is clearly desperate for work, I’m sure he’s not being picky here. There’s an absurdness to an employer asking “well tell me why pencil selling is your passion” as if only offering labor is not enough, an employee must be enthusiastic about their labor, regardless of how mundane it is.
And really we see this everyday at ordinary job interviews.
The worn out jacket and hat show that the person is destitute. Homeless people used to commonly sell pencils on the street.
The joke is that nobody interviews to be a pencil salesman. It’s not big business. It’s easy to sell pencils because they are everywhere, they’re dirt cheap, and everyone needs them. Well, not so much anymore, but this was 44 years ago.
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