My paper deliverers, older couple, called one night. They needed money for gas, and just needed $20 until the Champaign paper paid them. They’d been delivering to me for a year or so, so I gave them the money. They called with the same story a couple months later, and I started to feel funny about it, but the wife said her husband was in the hospital and they really needed help. Since neither looked very healthy, I did it again. Third time I turned her down. The details of their arrest for selling/possession of drugs was in the paper a couple of weeks later.
Yep. Grifter kept ringing the doorbell early one Sunday morning and thought the $20 that I gave him to go away wasn’t enough so he offered to drive me to an ATM.
The only thing I’ve given someone lately was food. I was at a burger place, eating outside. Because the burger’s really twice as much as I can eat, I’d cut it in half and was planning on getting a box. Somebody stopped just outside the fence and asked, “Are you going to eat that?” And I figured I could do without it.
Money–no. Not unless they guess the exact amount of change I have on me.
BUT…I have asked total strangers for gas money & bus fare–in one case I had checks and the gas station didn’t take checks, in the other I had lost my bus pass. And the total strangers handed it over. The strangers even refused my check (at the gas station–it might be important to note, here, that I’d already filled my tank, since I didn’t know they didn’t take checks). In both cases I asked the first people who showed up, and they forked it out. It’s been a long time and I hope I never have to do that again.
Christmas Day a few years back when I was living in Atlanta, junkie half my size knocks and asks if I have any toilet paper because he’s “sick somethin’ awful”. Within a few weeks he and friends had broken in 4 times, and my roommate and I moved across town to Decatur.
You know who I think makes out the best as far as asking for a hand-out?
People who park themselves at mall entrances/exits with signs which read: “Homeless! Will work for food.”
Think about it: You see the guy going in holding up that sign. If you’re a person who has a soft spot for people like that, you may:
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Go over to Hardees in the parking lot and get him a burger or two and a drink and hand it to him (or her) on your way out. Now he’s got food and didn’t have to work for it. A win.
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You don’t go to Hardees, but you see a couple of quarters in the console tray of your car and hand it out the window to him. Another win.
I don’t mean that to sound callous, okay? Just saying that I think they do better than the guy with the spiel.
One who always gets money/food from me is the guy who may sit at that same mall with a sign which reads, “Homeless Viet Nam/Gulf war vet. Please help.”
Maybe he’s even wearing a ragged old Army field jacket, doesn’t matter - I’m going to believe him. The words “please help” are important. Money, food, shelter, work? They’re all in those two words. Just whatever you can do, sir or ma’am.
Thanks
Q
One of my co-workers just had his house robbed - he suspects some guys that had been seen in the neighborhood asking for gas money from the locals - while their truck is still running nearby.
My neighbor across the street parks his state patrol car in front of his house. We never have these problems!
This thread reminds me of the time I took a green line train to a White Sox game, which requires a walk of about a half-mile through a predominantly black neighborhood (I am white).
On one corner, a white guy approached me and said his truck had broken down nearby, and tried to hit me up for train fare home, because “I don’t feel comfortable around here, if you know what I mean.” I said, “Sorry, no,” and kept walking, at which point he shouted after me, “What’s the world coming to if you can’t count on your own kind for help?” Though it may not have been advisable, I couldn’t resist calling back, “I’m not your kind!” as I walked away from him.
I’m quite sure he was a scammer, but even if he wasn’t I’m glad I didn’t give any money to a racist asshole.
Every beggar I’ve turned down in Michigan, Utah and Georgia has told me I’m not a Christian. The last looked at me even funnier when I said, “Why would you assume ANYONE’s a Christian?”
Coulda been the meth that made him pull the face, though. Hard to tell under the fluorescent lights in the Target grocery aisle. The stockboy gave him money when I complained I was being harassed by the man. The manager was more receptive to my notice but the guy bugged out w/ the child he carried before she could get to him.