January 2006 hasn’t been like January at all until now. Today it was wicked cold, as they say around here. On the way to my gym I passed the Chinatown T and all the homeless guys who usually hang out in front of Saint Francis House were huddled just inside the outbound entrance.

You gotta give it to these guys. I mean, presumably they could migrate, snow-bird style. What’s a one-way ticket to Nassau, Bahamas? Seventy-nine bucks on Jet Blue. Very doable. That’s less than the price of half a gram of crack (a “working half,” as they call it on the street). You gotta give something up temporarily, but look what you’re getting in return: it’s gonna be 79° and partly sunny in the Bahamas tomorrow. You know what it’s gonna be here in Boston? 36°, with rain/snow showers. All the crack in the world can’t make up for that cruddy forecast.

And I’m not trying to get rid of the homeless. That’s not my intention here. It’s not about me. I hate to see them freezing their nads off out there, sure, but then I go home, make myself a hot toddy, switch on the TV, and I’m snug as a bug in a rug. They’re still out there, but it’s out of sight, out of mind. I’m not gonna pretend otherwise. I know what life on the street’s like, so it’s not like I don’t have some kind of sympathy, but there’s only so much one man can do, you know?

What I’m saying is, if you look at it in a different light, there are certain advantages to being homeless. The glass isn’t always half-empty, people. After all, for a good portion of human history mankind was essentially homeless. Before the advent of agriculture brought the grub to you, you had no choice but to go to the grub. And that meant you moved around a lot. You followed the weather. When it rained, you found a dry place. What we’ve got today is kind of a historical anomaly: our homeless aren’t migratory. They’re sedentary.

In fact, the homeless are experiencing many of the same health problems as your average suburbanite. According to one expert: “obesity and sedentary lifestyles have been related to health problems among the homeless population,” too. It seems increasingly that the only difference between the homeless and the homeful is the fact that the former don’t have a home while the latter do.

Clearly, it wasn’t always the in-thing to have a home. It started getting trendy sometime around 10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture. Now, agriculture has its advantages, but there’s definitely something to be said for the more itinerate existence of hunter-gatherers, too. The prevailing opinion is that agriculture has made life easier, but some, among them a few anthropologists and some bushmen, beg to differ. As Jared Diamond tells it:

“[T]he average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn’t emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, ‘Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?’”

Think about it. It takes Itchy and me a couple hours a day to negotiate where we’re going for dinner. And then there’s the wait, because Itchy always forgets to make reservations. Then when you do get seated (and half the time we end up at the bar), you’re looking at a half an hour before you get your food, service being what it is. Three courses, brandy, and coffee and a cigar later, and there’s five hours that’ve blown by. And that’s just one meal in a day. And if you eat in it’s even worse. In the modern world, obtaining food is a friggin full-time job.

So who are the real suckers here? That’s the question, innit? And are there enough mongongo nuts to go around?

The lesson? Don’t look down your nose at the homeless. Think of it this way: you know that if our little world got turned upside-down all the sudden (did everybody get their “Ready Boston” pamphlet detailing the evacuation plan in case of “a dangerous situation such as a flood, a chemical spill or a very large storm”?)—anyway, if we all found ourselves out on our asses all the sudden having to forage for ourselves, who do you think would have the really helpful hints then? It would behoove us all to befriend a vagrant or two. If “befriend” is going too far, then at least network ‘em in.

Homeful folk do OK when the name of the game is flourish. Yes, we know the best microbrews (He’brew: The Chosen Beer) and sushi bars (Oishii), the trendiest sneakers (Adidas Micropacers—only 500 pairs were produced, selling for $600 each), and the most to-die-for handbags (one word: Balenciaga). But when its survival we’re talking, the rules change. Can you safely drink street sludge? Eat raw fish from the Charles? Do you have a pair of truly sensible shoes? Can you conceal weapons in that Louis Vuitton knock-off of yours? Who you gonna ask? An expert, of course. Somebody who knows.

And that somebody would be your neighborhood homeless person (or “habitationally-challenged individual,” if you wanna get all PC about it). They know that Rule No.1 is you go where you’ve got a steady supply of mongongo nuts. And a liquor store nearby, if at all possible. I mean, can’t have nuts without beer. What’s the point?

The point! When the tsunami comes, or the dirty bomb, or Godzilla, or space invaders, where you gonna go? How are you gonna find it? Just hope when the time comes (and it’s coming, people, it’s coming) you’ve got ol’ Crazy Eddie the Homeless Guy’s number in your blackberry.

I can appreciate our homeless for the vast store of potentially very useful information they possess. They may look like good-for-nothings to you now, but, trust me, when Mars attacks, they’ll be the ones to save the race from doom. Forget those TV phonies on their desert islands. These cats are the real survivors.

So I don’t want to run them off. In truth I think we could do much more for them than we do, right here in Boston. But when you see them braving this bitter cold, you have to wonder why they don’t celebrate their freedom from the nine-to-five, the ball-and-chain, from mortgages and credit card debt, and so on, by springing for that Jet Blue ticket to the Bahamas. I mean, fuck winter in New England. I’m headed to Florida myself on Wednesday.