Hobo Closets

Backpacks weren't always called backpacks. This is a thing that few people know. You see, originally, backpacks were known as hobo closets. And Latigo Flint recently decided that if he has anything to say about it, they very soon shall be again.

So this afternoon found Latigo Flint leaning against a chain link fence outside the local high school, trying to immersively market the term: "hobo closet" to the youth of America.

"I reckon that's mighty fine hobo closet you got there." I drawled in a low but not unfriendly voice.

"Excuse me, what did you say?!" The young lady was genuinely perplexed.

"Your hobo closet." I repeated with a nod. "I reckon it's mighty fine. Or rad as the kids might say these days."

She must have had somewhere to quite urgently be.

Two slouchy young men passed by, tiny white headphones rammed in their ears.
"Well I'll be horsewhipped." I exclaimed. "They're building hobo closets with cord ports now?"

The slouchy boys didn't hear me over the din of their thumpedy beats. I flicked the earpiece from the ear of the one closest to me.

"Hey, what the fuck man?!!!"

"Your hobo closet young sir--it seems to have a cord port built in to the fabric, allowing you to secure your digital music player and yet still listen to it in transit. Isn't that just a most splendid thing?"

He stared up at me with dull eyes. He seemed wholly unable to form an opinion on whether or not it was a most splendid thing. Then he tried to knife me. I did not permit him to knife me. Instead, I sidestepped and pulled his hobo closet up and around his head, immobilizing his scrawny arms like bird wings in a freeze frame.

"No knifing your elders." I hissed. "That's a bad slouchy boy."

He seemed unrepentant and I was sorely tempted to beat him to death with his own hobo closet. But that sort of thing is frowned upon and after a while I let him go.

Next it was time for a smoke break. I needed to reflect and reevaluate my strategy for the reintroduction of "hobo closets" as a common term for backpacks. (I walked two blocks before lighting up because in California they execute you for smoking upwind of a school.)

On my break I saw a hobo. He didn't have a closet.

Back at the school I redoubled my efforts. I strolled around the commons, complementing nerds on their hobo closets. I sprinted up to popular kids and asked them where they purchased their hobo closets. I even went so far as to round up several jocks, and like Anne Sullivan to Helen Keller, placed their fingers on my lips as I spoke the words, "hobo closet" while simultaneously bashing them in the face with their own backpacks.

In the end, the authorities ambushed me with beanbag projectiles and tear gas. I fell screaming "hobo closet" over and over as I writhed. And according to the court appointed attorney, that's the rebar in my insanity plea.



Anyway, 'yall be sure to pass it on--backpacks are hobo closets; hobo closet means a backpack.

Well, good night for now. Or as Helen Keller would say, ...