Alex wants to be Super Grover from Sesame Street for Halloween, with a blue paper maché head and baggy shorts over a unitard, so I created the Superman medallion with a "G" in place of the "S" and dropped it on disk for him. A print shop will burn it into a T-shirt for $15. After work I rode the A down to West 4th and dropped by with the little disk.

Alex's roommate's friend Sanisha came into the apartment. She introduced herself and pulled out some papers.

"Basically, we're salespeople but we're collecting for charity."

"So what do you get from this? What do they pay you?"

"30% commission."

"Tax-free?"

"Yeah, you just skim it off the top. Way better than waiting tables."

"How much did you make today?"

"60."

"Not bad. Better than a lot of salesmen."

"Yeah," she said. "Like, no more retail."

"It's good to help homeless kids, too," I said.

"Well, yeah, sure. It's all right. A job."

"It's not about homeless kids, is it?"

"Not for me, no."