Homeless in Vancouver: Rats! The restaurant wouldn’t serve him

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      The rats in this town who wear business suits, drive nice cars, and live in fancy condos have no problems whatsoever getting service in restaurants.

      Cleo the rat however possesses nothing besides the love of her owner—is that why the McDonald’s in the 1400 block of West Broadway Avenue refused to serve her on Thursday (July 20)?

      Whatever the reason, Cleo and her owner had to leave the restaurant empty-handed after being told they would not be served.

      I have to say that while the bald-headed owner of Cleo volunteered her name and consented to be photographed with her, he was altogether too shy to tell me his own name.

      An out of focus photo of cute little Cleo the rat.
      Stanley Q. Woodvine

      For the entire time that the gentleman was in the restaurant, he wore a sort of stony expression and the proverbial thousand-yard stare; his skin was pocked here-and-there with the sort of sores that (to be honest) I generally attribute to crystal meth users, people with MRSA, and the occupants of bedbug-ridden Downtown Eastside flop-house rooms.

      Cleo, on the other hand, looked happy and healthy.

      On the way out the door the fellow paused to ask me for spare change. When I told him that I did not have any and that I was homeless, he stared hard at me and then declared that I didn’t look homeless.

      I didn’t say it but I was thinking: how much more homeless would wearing a brown rat on a string have made me look?

      After the fellow left the restaurant and just before he boarded an eastbound Number 9 bus, I watched as he gently tucked Cleo the rat out of sight in a pocket of his black jacket. 

      Stanley Q. Woodvine is a homeless resident of Vancouver who has worked in the past as an illustrator, graphic designer, and writer. Follow Stanley on Twitter at @sqwabb.  

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