The Worm Has Turned
/Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 02 seconds
Back in 2011 I attended the USC-UCLA football game on a Saturday night at the LA Coliseum. Me and my companion - the incomparable Lady Pumpernickle Dusseldorf, were the guests of my brother and sister-in-law for the game.
The first hurdle to attending a game at the Coliseum is to find safe parking.
After driving up and down various Coliseum side streets, we noticed that all the homeowners were offering parking on their lawn, driveway and the sidewalk in front of their house for a fee. This exercise in capitalism was a robust business and families were able to cram eight, nine and ten cars onto their property at $50 a vehicle. Not a bad money maker.
We settled on a spot, parked and paid and as we prepared to walk to the stadium we were approached by a rambunctious man who was very animated, spoke very quickly and reeked of alcohol. He introduced himself to us, machine-gunning out his name in near incoherent fashion. As far as anyone could tell his name began with a “W” and so my sister in law, in as kind hearted a manner as possible, tentatively asked, “Warren?”.
It was made decidedly clear that the name wasn’t “Warren”, but clearly enunciated to be…”WORM”.
Worm was a consummate salesman. He was basically in the insurance business, no doubt unlicensed…and his pitch was simple…he pledged to “make sure nothing happened to our car” for a nominal fee.
In L.A, most particularly in bad neighborhoods, and the area surrounding the Coliseum qualified, crime is an ever-present possibility if not likelihood, so Worm’s business model was extremely sound. It seemed to me that what Worm was really saying was that if we gave him $15 he wouldn’t break into our car….which, again…is a very sound business model.
Pressed for time, we relented and agreed to Worm’s proposal.
In the midst of finalizing our transaction Worm quickly ran off to confront a car driving down the street. It wasn’t clear what transpired between Worm and the driver, but whatever it was, Worm returned in a fury.
He was shouting emotionally to anyone and everyone that could hear that the driver of the car had “called me out by name"!” Apparently calling someone out by name, whatever that may mean, was a serious violation of the code of conduct in this particular area.
Worm kept frantically repeating that phrase in agitated credulity like it was some sort of drunken mantra.
“He called me out by name!”
“He called me out by name!”
Regardless of all of the sound and fury, we finally paid Worm and went to the game and watched the Trojans obliterate the Bruins. A good time was had by all.
When we returned to our car, Worm was nowhere to be found, but he was certainly good to his word as our vehicle had not been touched. If Worm was on Yelp I would’ve given him a positive review.
The reason I tell this drawn out tale is because I thought of Worm yesterday when the PAC 12 cancelled football games for 2020.
The cancellation of college football wasnt surprising to me, as I have previously written how I thought the season just couldn’t and wouldn’t happen.
What made me think of Worm was that while no college football is sad for the college athletes and fans who’ll miss out on their sport, it is financially devastating for the people on the fringes who survive on the crumbs of the sport…like Worm and all of those home owners turned parking lot entrepreneurs.
USC plays a minimum of six home games a season which means that those parking lot/home owners were pulling in anywhere from $2,000 - $3,000 in extra money a season. That tax-free money may not seem like much, but if you are counting on it in your budget it’s a huge deal if it goes away, and can mean the difference between paying or not paying your mortgage, rent or car payment.
Worm was an independent contractor, and even though his fee was a reasonable $15 (which was on top of the $50 parking fee), he wasn’t confined to just the cars parked at one house. Worm worked the whole block.
I can’t know for sure since I haven’t seen Worm’s tax returns - and something tells me Worm LLC is based in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes, but I’d wager Worm was probably raking in at least $300 a game, and probably much more.
For a guy like Worm, losing out on $1,800 or more from his yearly budget is catastrophic.
Not surprisingly, Worm and the parking lot/homeowners are not going to be receiving any government subsidies for their lost revenue…they are just shit out of bucks and luck.
The parking lot entrepreneurs and Worms of the world don’t just live and hustle in Los Angeles. Every college town has a hidden infrastructure of people making money when the local team plays a home game. There are Worms in cities and towns like Ann Arbor, Columbus, State College, Madison, Berkeley, Seattle, Pullman, Eugene, Corvallis and on and on and on.
The side hustle t-shirt salesmen, food vendors, parking lot attendants, security guards and various other people, are taking a huge financial hit with the cancellation of Big Ten and Pac 12 college football. And the chance of that pain spreading to the cities and towns of the Big 12, SEC and ACC seems pretty likely if not inevitable.
I am not arguing here that the college football should happen, I don’t even remotely think that. All I am doing is shining a light on the mostly unseen suffering that is going on across America as a result of the coronavirus.
I think it is important to remember that a lot of regular, working and lower class people, like Worm, who were already hurting a great deal, are in for a whole lot more pain as the fallout from coronavirus continues.
Once again, things are going to get much worse before they ever get better.
©2020