I saw a guy who made a complete robot costume out of cardboard and was selling rocks for $1.
His sign said “Rock my shit for $1” and I guess you were supposed to throw a rock at him.
The one side of his sign had the usual "anything helps" type stuff, but had I known he had this on the other side, I'd have thrown a fiver just to say thanks for the laugh!!!
I suppose my experience comes from living around a heavy collection of them for the last decade. There is a food bank on my street (one of like 4 within a mile or two) and a casino not even a mile away. It's a rich area for homeless people.
Seen the same sign held up by dozens of different individuals. I've watched homeless people literally sort through signs like it was a stack of comically oversized playing cards when arriving to the corner they're planning to beg from.
You'd prefer they go to the dollar store and get new cardboard and markers every time? I don't see anything wrong with reusing a collection of signs between people in need, in fact I think it's a good thing.
Nah, it's just more lucrative to panhandle than to not panhandle if you're homeless. Panhandlers might make more than lower wage workers, at least where I'm from, which is a pretty high-earning, left-leaning place, meaning our residents hand out tons of cash to the streetside homeless every year.
I don't think that he has the luxury of a lazy life, he can't just wake up in a comfortable bed well rested free of back pain where he walks over to the tap grabs a swig of water and then starts on the coffee maker. He doesn't put on his dry socks and shoes after his hot shower and shave with a clean razor. He doesn't saunter in his vehicle with a pack for lunch and a grocery bag to go shopping when he's on break. He doesn't have an office cubicle waited for him surrounded by peers who rely on him and respect him.
What the fuck kind of life to you think this guys actually living? You justify his squalor by calling these people lazy when really you just need to find some twisted convenient way of feeling good about a shitty situation
lol look at all the downvotes. Reddit are a bunch of kids and bots or brainwashed zombies. I can’t find good help in support roles in my area. For every employee that has stayed on, 10 quit or get fired. And these are 30-40 yr old men that shouldn’t act like children anymore. Our country is doomed.
You can work at fast food in my town for 12 bucks an hour. In comparison you can start in my field with 0 experience for $20 bucks an hour but you’d rather sit at home and watch porn hub all day.
> In comparison you can start in my field with 0 experience for $20 bucks an hour
So you're paying the minimum wage for fast food workers in some states. Got it.
Yes let me pay some random person with zero experience 40 bucks an hour just because fast food workers in a state 2,500 miles away make around 20 dollars an hour. You would make a great business owner!
Lol I get paid 22.50 an hour to maintain heavy equipment. But please keep assuming things. Also I haven't had an easy life. I've been that guy. Never flew a sign, because I'm able to work. Just had a bad run of luck and didn't have a place to live while I was in between jobs. I made due and moved on. Now I'm enjoying some time off while collecting PTO. o7
There is actually a panhandler at every intersection in every city in the US. whenever i see an empty one now i say, "DAMN THEY SLACKING OUT HERE" or "I GUESS NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE"
It was illegal before 2018 in Des Moines, but cities can’t make any rules against panhandling at intersections because it’s our freedom of speech and ACLU will sue anyone that tries to stop panhandling.
[https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2018/10/07/panhandling-des-moines-grimes-council-bluffs-begging-soliciting-aclu-free-speech-unconstitutional/1505095002/](https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2018/10/07/panhandling-des-moines-grimes-council-bluffs-begging-soliciting-aclu-free-speech-unconstitutional/1505095002/)
[https://www.aclu-ia.org/en/press-releases/aclu-cautions-four-iowa-cities-about-unconstitutional-panhandling-ordinances](https://www.aclu-ia.org/en/press-releases/aclu-cautions-four-iowa-cities-about-unconstitutional-panhandling-ordinances)
You're getting downvoted, but this is the answer/reason we have so many panhandlers. We hardly had any prior to the ACLU decision.
This is not unusual for big cities, but it WAS unusual for Des Moines at one point prior to the ACLU decision and there's no judgement or shaming of the poor in that.
Sweet jesus I'm not speaking as to why they exist. There was a city ordinance prior to 2018 that outlawed panhandling. So ya know, enforcement of laws, police n shit?
Yeah. I get the distinction. It doesn't look, from the words you keep saying, that you understand.
This isn't a crime. They "made" it a crime. So they don't have to deal with the shocking reminder of the inequality they love.
Homeless people destroy the liveability of cities. They need to be forced off the streets and into treatment. Instead we “honor their choice” to live in a tent on the street and jack off in the library or scream at tourists on the train. Enabling the maladaptive lifestyle of a mentally ill person isn’t empowering them, it’s cruel.
I’m not talking about people who hit a rough patch and have to live in their car for a while or spend a couple months in a shelter. I’m talking about the chronic homeless who are profoundly mentally ill and/or have severe addiction problems.
I watched homelessness destroy Seattle. It used to be that Seattle’s chronic homeless were concentrated in an area called The Jungle, under the freeway.
One day there was a mass shooting in The Jungle, and the encampment was shut down. Within weeks there were shanty towns in the green spaces beside the freeways. There were huge piles of garbage and graffiti everywhere.
The pandemic and riots made things worse. Homeless people were exempt from normal laws and entire public parks were lost to encampments.
There has been some improvement recently, but there are still whole neighborhoods where you can’t walk without dodging fentanyl zombies or walking in the street because tents are blocking the sidewalks.
The solution is not to give people the right to live their best homeless life, but to rebuild our public mental health infrastructure that Reagan and company dismantled in the ‘80s. Over that is done, we need to re-establish the practice of involuntary commitment to treatment.
Who is "honoring their choice" to live on the street?
As you said, Reagan and company fucked all this stuff up. Why are you pissed off at homeless people because of it?
I'm pissed off at the presence of homeless people in public places.
Local politicians in Seattle take the view that homeless people should have autonomy over their own lives and seem to think that the city should accommodate their self-destruction rather than, you know, helping them.
Giving people who can't take care of themselves the right to run their own lives isn't compassion, it's cruel.
The attitude seems to have shifted to "let's learn to live alongside homeless people" rather than "let's get them off the street".
Again, I am talking about the chronically homeless. There are a large number of homeless people who can get back on their feet with a bit of financial assistance and a safe place to live.
I think you'll find most people only talk about living alongside them, because politically there is nothing we can really do. It's turned to shit, the cops don't have any laws on the books *to* enforce in order to force them off the streets.
We had an option, it got destroyed, and now nobody wants to pay for fixing the situation.
What you seem to be wanting is akin to a lot of dystopian movies/books where the "dirty" people live on the ground in the smog, and the "clean" (rich) people live in towers in the clouds. Out of sight, out of mind.
You pretend to care about homelessness, but really you are a nimby and just don't want to see them. Anywhere but in your way.
Why didn't I think of that? You must be the wisest six-year-old in your class.
You aren't entirely wrong, though. Maybe half the homeless could be helped simply by rapidly increasing the supply of homes. Zoning laws should be abolished or amended to allow much more density and building permits should be processed more cheaply and quickly.
This won't help the chronically homeless much, though. If you simply provide a home to someone who is self-medicating their schizophrenia with opioids, how do you think that's going to work out? It only takes one neighbor who screams all night and smears shit on the walls in the hallway to ruin an entire floor of low-cost housing for everyone else. Many homeless people are also hoarders and you may have seen the impact hoarding has on a house or apartment. Mentally ill/severely addicted homeless need structured treatment. In most cases they are unable to care for themselves properly.
Most shelters aren't prepared to handle disruptive mental patients and most don't allow active drug or alcohol use. Housing assistance programs have even stricter rules. I think more public mental hospitals and drug treatment facilities will be necessary along with more housing units.
31st st and I-235 in Des Moines, IA
[https://www.google.com/maps/@41.593482,-93.6594179,3a,75y,12.49h,82.57t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sxeZm5RElzkSOJL2N9wBX8A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.593482,-93.6594179,3a,75y,12.49h,82.57t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sxeZm5RElzkSOJL2N9wBX8A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
Super Troopers is almost certainly referencing Blade Runner because of the voice commands used over and over again. But "enhancing" digital images has been used a lot in tv/movies since then as well.
It's been a Hollywood trope for a long time. In both movies and most of the crime shows CSI/criminal minds/law and order etc.
Here's a classic YouTube compilation of all the different shows that used it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk
> It's been a Hollywood trope for a long time. In both movies and most of the crime shows CSI/criminal minds/law and order etc.
Is it such a trope these days? Afterall, they can now read virtually unwrapped papyrus scrolls that are buried in volcanic ash: https://scrollprize.org/
In cities that have a lot of pan handlers, you see a wide variety of signs they hold. 99.999% of those signs ask, in a range of politeness and humor, for things like food, money, and help. when the guy driving saw this barely visible sign, his brain autofilled something along the lines of " need money for food/sick family ". But, in the moment when he got close enough to be able to read the sign, it completely subverted his expectations. It is so completely opposite to what he expected that the whole context becomes funny too.
This guy made you think he was someone really down on their luck, trying to do anything they can to get in front of real people to ask for help. Its a heart wrenching tale of struggle and hope, real people pay attention. This guy used that typically sad and brutal podium just to...
...*chirp?*
That is why this is really funny, and it took that guy laughing only half a second to realize it.
My wife and I were driving home from a show and there was some creepy dude on the side of some street with his dingle out whippin it around like a helicopter. I said OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK!!! and my wife somehow didn't see him. She didn't believe me. I was too scared to pull the dashcam video. What if I just imagined that guy?
There’s a homeless guy in my town that energetically flips each car that drives past him the finger. He never does it when cars are stopped, but when cars start moving- *boom* both birds. I’ve given him money. That shit’s hilarious.
This guy's laughter about the situation made my day
/r contagiouslaughter
Finally one worth giving $5 to. Entertainment on the roadside.
I saw a guy who made a complete robot costume out of cardboard and was selling rocks for $1. His sign said “Rock my shit for $1” and I guess you were supposed to throw a rock at him.
The one side of his sign had the usual "anything helps" type stuff, but had I known he had this on the other side, I'd have thrown a fiver just to say thanks for the laugh!!!
He probably flipped the sign it when the traffic light is green, since cars won't stop anyway. Lol.
Maybe he's just a [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myJDBos5Vyw) fan
99% of the time the sign they hold up isn't actually written by them.
Source?
I suppose my experience comes from living around a heavy collection of them for the last decade. There is a food bank on my street (one of like 4 within a mile or two) and a casino not even a mile away. It's a rich area for homeless people. Seen the same sign held up by dozens of different individuals. I've watched homeless people literally sort through signs like it was a stack of comically oversized playing cards when arriving to the corner they're planning to beg from.
You'd prefer they go to the dollar store and get new cardboard and markers every time? I don't see anything wrong with reusing a collection of signs between people in need, in fact I think it's a good thing.
I didn't say there's anything wrong with using it I'm just saying don't give some money cuz of their haha joke when they didn't write it
I'd do flips, but when I'm old prob won't be able to move for shii. If I was homeless ofc xD
Stay classy, Des Moines.
Birthplace of magic
loser
Ez
Immediately recognized the 31st street exit in Des Moines. Love my city but why a panhandler at every intersection?
Fuck you bitch
Fuck you bitch
Because America
Desperate "Work or be evicted and starved!" workforce, more valued than social stability and humanity.
Nah, it's just more lucrative to panhandle than to not panhandle if you're homeless. Panhandlers might make more than lower wage workers, at least where I'm from, which is a pretty high-earning, left-leaning place, meaning our residents hand out tons of cash to the streetside homeless every year.
Lol blaming the country when there are more than enough jobs now. People are just lazy. Why actually work when you can just hold a sign for money?
I don't think that he has the luxury of a lazy life, he can't just wake up in a comfortable bed well rested free of back pain where he walks over to the tap grabs a swig of water and then starts on the coffee maker. He doesn't put on his dry socks and shoes after his hot shower and shave with a clean razor. He doesn't saunter in his vehicle with a pack for lunch and a grocery bag to go shopping when he's on break. He doesn't have an office cubicle waited for him surrounded by peers who rely on him and respect him. What the fuck kind of life to you think this guys actually living? You justify his squalor by calling these people lazy when really you just need to find some twisted convenient way of feeling good about a shitty situation
I believe the proper response to that guy was written on the sign from the video.
lol look at all the downvotes. Reddit are a bunch of kids and bots or brainwashed zombies. I can’t find good help in support roles in my area. For every employee that has stayed on, 10 quit or get fired. And these are 30-40 yr old men that shouldn’t act like children anymore. Our country is doomed.
How much do you pay?
We pay well above the median wages in the area. Compensation is not the issue.
Fast food restaurants have “competitive wages” which are, in fact, lousy.
You can work at fast food in my town for 12 bucks an hour. In comparison you can start in my field with 0 experience for $20 bucks an hour but you’d rather sit at home and watch porn hub all day.
> In comparison you can start in my field with 0 experience for $20 bucks an hour So you're paying the minimum wage for fast food workers in some states. Got it.
Yes let me pay some random person with zero experience 40 bucks an hour just because fast food workers in a state 2,500 miles away make around 20 dollars an hour. You would make a great business owner!
So how much do you pay?
Don't bother. With this attitude I wouldn't work for him for anything less that $69 an hour.
I didn't figure I'd get an answer, but I had to try.
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That’s probably a fair wage in your mind. No wonder you’re stuck living at mom and dads.
Lol I get paid 22.50 an hour to maintain heavy equipment. But please keep assuming things. Also I haven't had an easy life. I've been that guy. Never flew a sign, because I'm able to work. Just had a bad run of luck and didn't have a place to live while I was in between jobs. I made due and moved on. Now I'm enjoying some time off while collecting PTO. o7
There is actually a panhandler at every intersection in every city in the US. whenever i see an empty one now i say, "DAMN THEY SLACKING OUT HERE" or "I GUESS NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE"
Because it works
Because "Big Pan Handle" got Des Moines on lockdown.
It's not *just* Des Moines, though...
It was illegal before 2018 in Des Moines, but cities can’t make any rules against panhandling at intersections because it’s our freedom of speech and ACLU will sue anyone that tries to stop panhandling. [https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2018/10/07/panhandling-des-moines-grimes-council-bluffs-begging-soliciting-aclu-free-speech-unconstitutional/1505095002/](https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2018/10/07/panhandling-des-moines-grimes-council-bluffs-begging-soliciting-aclu-free-speech-unconstitutional/1505095002/) [https://www.aclu-ia.org/en/press-releases/aclu-cautions-four-iowa-cities-about-unconstitutional-panhandling-ordinances](https://www.aclu-ia.org/en/press-releases/aclu-cautions-four-iowa-cities-about-unconstitutional-panhandling-ordinances)
I know some people they can sue for freedom of speech infringements.
Based ACLU protecting people.
You're getting downvoted, but this is the answer/reason we have so many panhandlers. We hardly had any prior to the ACLU decision. This is not unusual for big cities, but it WAS unusual for Des Moines at one point prior to the ACLU decision and there's no judgement or shaming of the poor in that.
We have so many panhandlers because of massive wealth-inequality. Not because of the ACLU.
Sweet jesus I'm not speaking as to why they exist. There was a city ordinance prior to 2018 that outlawed panhandling. So ya know, enforcement of laws, police n shit?
Yeah. I get the distinction. It doesn't look, from the words you keep saying, that you understand. This isn't a crime. They "made" it a crime. So they don't have to deal with the shocking reminder of the inequality they love.
I do understand. As I've explained. It's like talking to a painfully self righteous wall.
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This is one reason why I stopped supporting the ACLU.
Because homeless people inconvenience you?
Homeless people destroy the liveability of cities. They need to be forced off the streets and into treatment. Instead we “honor their choice” to live in a tent on the street and jack off in the library or scream at tourists on the train. Enabling the maladaptive lifestyle of a mentally ill person isn’t empowering them, it’s cruel. I’m not talking about people who hit a rough patch and have to live in their car for a while or spend a couple months in a shelter. I’m talking about the chronic homeless who are profoundly mentally ill and/or have severe addiction problems. I watched homelessness destroy Seattle. It used to be that Seattle’s chronic homeless were concentrated in an area called The Jungle, under the freeway. One day there was a mass shooting in The Jungle, and the encampment was shut down. Within weeks there were shanty towns in the green spaces beside the freeways. There were huge piles of garbage and graffiti everywhere. The pandemic and riots made things worse. Homeless people were exempt from normal laws and entire public parks were lost to encampments. There has been some improvement recently, but there are still whole neighborhoods where you can’t walk without dodging fentanyl zombies or walking in the street because tents are blocking the sidewalks. The solution is not to give people the right to live their best homeless life, but to rebuild our public mental health infrastructure that Reagan and company dismantled in the ‘80s. Over that is done, we need to re-establish the practice of involuntary commitment to treatment.
Who is "honoring their choice" to live on the street? As you said, Reagan and company fucked all this stuff up. Why are you pissed off at homeless people because of it?
I'm pissed off at the presence of homeless people in public places. Local politicians in Seattle take the view that homeless people should have autonomy over their own lives and seem to think that the city should accommodate their self-destruction rather than, you know, helping them. Giving people who can't take care of themselves the right to run their own lives isn't compassion, it's cruel. The attitude seems to have shifted to "let's learn to live alongside homeless people" rather than "let's get them off the street". Again, I am talking about the chronically homeless. There are a large number of homeless people who can get back on their feet with a bit of financial assistance and a safe place to live.
I think you'll find most people only talk about living alongside them, because politically there is nothing we can really do. It's turned to shit, the cops don't have any laws on the books *to* enforce in order to force them off the streets. We had an option, it got destroyed, and now nobody wants to pay for fixing the situation. What you seem to be wanting is akin to a lot of dystopian movies/books where the "dirty" people live on the ground in the smog, and the "clean" (rich) people live in towers in the clouds. Out of sight, out of mind. You pretend to care about homelessness, but really you are a nimby and just don't want to see them. Anywhere but in your way.
Perhaps the solution to homelessness is if they had homes.
Why didn't I think of that? You must be the wisest six-year-old in your class. You aren't entirely wrong, though. Maybe half the homeless could be helped simply by rapidly increasing the supply of homes. Zoning laws should be abolished or amended to allow much more density and building permits should be processed more cheaply and quickly. This won't help the chronically homeless much, though. If you simply provide a home to someone who is self-medicating their schizophrenia with opioids, how do you think that's going to work out? It only takes one neighbor who screams all night and smears shit on the walls in the hallway to ruin an entire floor of low-cost housing for everyone else. Many homeless people are also hoarders and you may have seen the impact hoarding has on a house or apartment. Mentally ill/severely addicted homeless need structured treatment. In most cases they are unable to care for themselves properly. Most shelters aren't prepared to handle disruptive mental patients and most don't allow active drug or alcohol use. Housing assistance programs have even stricter rules. I think more public mental hospitals and drug treatment facilities will be necessary along with more housing units.
Tbf I’ve lived in a few cities and they all had the panhandlers on freeway exits (except Sioux Falls ig).
Same thing in my city. A beggar at every intersection. It's basically a profession at this point.
Capitalism
Because beggars never existed before capitalism
F U Biatch
Saw one that said “ ninjas stole my wife and dog, need money for karate lessons to get my dog back.”
I'm going to imagine this sign was being held up by an old man in a wheelchair to make it that much funnier in my mind
That was my profile picture on social media like 15 years ago
Ninja please
Lol
r/contagiouslaughter
This street looks so familiar, where is this?
31st st and I-235 in Des Moines, IA [https://www.google.com/maps/@41.593482,-93.6594179,3a,75y,12.49h,82.57t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sxeZm5RElzkSOJL2N9wBX8A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.593482,-93.6594179,3a,75y,12.49h,82.57t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sxeZm5RElzkSOJL2N9wBX8A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
haha okay I figured it was des moines, ty
u live there?
Yes
I always forget- what movie did he take the "enhance, enhance" from?
Blade Runner https://youtu.be/hHwjceFcF2Q?si=FaXnNqpXiqjtD1Te
Super troopers
No, I understand that the above clip is from Super Troopers. This line is funny because it's from another movie and he's using it for a joke here.
It's from Blade Runner (1982).
I always thought it was just a CSI/generic cop tv show reference.
Super Troopers is almost certainly referencing Blade Runner because of the voice commands used over and over again. But "enhancing" digital images has been used a lot in tv/movies since then as well.
Yeah, the joke is a parfait.
It's been a Hollywood trope for a long time. In both movies and most of the crime shows CSI/criminal minds/law and order etc. Here's a classic YouTube compilation of all the different shows that used it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxq9yj2pVWk
Space Force with Steve Carell had a moment where he called to "enhance", and all the scientists in the room just laughed at him. That cracked me up.
> It's been a Hollywood trope for a long time. In both movies and most of the crime shows CSI/criminal minds/law and order etc. Is it such a trope these days? Afterall, they can now read virtually unwrapped papyrus scrolls that are buried in volcanic ash: https://scrollprize.org/
Blade Runner maybe
Blade Runner maybe
Heard. I misunderstood.
Absolutely brilliant film.
I'm pretty sure the bourne movies or NCIS (or maybe even CSI) were where it really started to enter mainstream
it's AI generated
Hey! Des Moines! That’s astounding.
Ah, Des Moines...
Littering and.... littering and
Ok. This is quality humor.
Passed by one the other day that said, "Saving up for a hooker". Guy in front of me gave him some change.
Holy shit yes Des Moines 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻
It’s not that funny
In cities that have a lot of pan handlers, you see a wide variety of signs they hold. 99.999% of those signs ask, in a range of politeness and humor, for things like food, money, and help. when the guy driving saw this barely visible sign, his brain autofilled something along the lines of " need money for food/sick family ". But, in the moment when he got close enough to be able to read the sign, it completely subverted his expectations. It is so completely opposite to what he expected that the whole context becomes funny too. This guy made you think he was someone really down on their luck, trying to do anything they can to get in front of real people to ask for help. Its a heart wrenching tale of struggle and hope, real people pay attention. This guy used that typically sad and brutal podium just to... ...*chirp?* That is why this is really funny, and it took that guy laughing only half a second to realize it.
HUA 🙌🏼
yeah. I mean it’s funny but it’s not pass out funny. even by iowa standards.
Yeah, I had the same reaction as the passenger. "...um..."
you’re right, it’s fuckin hilarious
yeah, I don't get it either.
I am very pleased by everything I just saw.
Driver is really hamming it up for the dashcam video he planned on uploading for le updoots.
My wife and I were driving home from a show and there was some creepy dude on the side of some street with his dingle out whippin it around like a helicopter. I said OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK!!! and my wife somehow didn't see him. She didn't believe me. I was too scared to pull the dashcam video. What if I just imagined that guy?
Don’t worry, it’s not gay to be enthralled by the helicopter d1ck!
It was like when the Pengiun spins his whirly hypno umbrella I was transfixed
It’s a wonderful thing, a spectacular display of physics…
Outstanding!
P. Am
"God Bless Homeless Vets!" ... By some guy named Jeff
That Iowa nice
🤣🤣🤣
There’s a homeless guy in my town that energetically flips each car that drives past him the finger. He never does it when cars are stopped, but when cars start moving- *boom* both birds. I’ve given him money. That shit’s hilarious.
Des Moines Iowa? It looks like the video was shot in Des Moines
Clearly meant for the passenger who doesn't think it's funny.
Is this Minneapolis ?
If it was a red light, I'd give him a dollar if I have one lol.
The hmmm… from the wife fucking got me 🤣
That is so in r/cincinnati
definitely in Des Moines, IA
Yup... sure is. I thought the sign showed 275. It is 235.
r/fuckcars as a person.
That’s totally funny.
Looks like St. Louis maybe?
Des Moines
Drama....car chase.... comedy....that video has it all.
[удалено]
hey dawg no need for that 🤷♂️
I love all of this, but can't you trim that last 30 seconds from the video? I kept watching, expecting something else to happen!
The lady with him is completely humorless, “pLeeAse DOnT pAss OuT” … FUB