The lady beggar--how did she do this?

Factual Questions
1

I’m putting this in GQ because there is, presumably, an answer.

So, I’m sitting in the Safeway parking lot, about to start my car, and The Lady Beggar comes up to me and says, “I just need some spare change and I know you have some, if I guess the amount will you give it to me?”

This is a novel approach so I say sure.

Without even thinking about it she says, “Eighty-three cents.”

So I count the money in my change purse. Guess what? Eighty-three cents. So I handed it over.

A couple of weeks later I’m with a friend, and there she is again. This time she hit both of us, my friend for 22 cents and me for 31 cents.

She did not follow us out of the store (in the first case, I hadn’t even gone into the store yet) and had no way of knowing how much was in our pockets, etc.

This was just weird. I know generally how much cash I have, but not down to the penny. And yet this beggar knows?

While amazing, it doesn’t look like a very successful shtick. She looks like a beggar, she’s emaciated, and on the way through the parking lot after getting our spare change she veered off to check out if somebody had left anything useful in a plastic cup from 7-11. They did, and she drank it.

2

She’s magic of course. Or Jesus. Same thing.

3

I’ve never heard the usage “lady beggar.” It sounds like a naughty play from Shakespeare’s time. She’s a beggar – but she’s a LADY!

4

I was going to say that she tells everybody 83 cents, and one time out of a hundred she gets a hit. But the rest of your story belies that.

5

It’s probably just a coincidence. The art of begging has evolved to the point where they all seem to ask for a very specific dollar amount. At Penn Station, they will often look up the price to a particular NJ or LI destination and then mention they lost their wallet and need $6.75 to get to Pallookaville. If you were to do some fact -checking, you’d find that a ticket to Palookaville does cost $6.75. Perhaps using exact amounts makes them more believable.

6

She freed a genie and wished (1) to never need to work again, (2) to have psychic powers, and (3) to have an inexhaustible supply of money.

Goddamn genies always f&ckin’ with people.

7

My guess is she just wants people to get their money out of their pockets. I’m sure most people give her their change even if she’s wrong. In your case I’m sure it was luck.

8

Was the change in your pocket only from your transaction at the store?

My guess is that she can tell how much change you got based on the sounds made by the change dispencing machine things they use at Safeway.

9

The OP says he hadn’t even been in the store yet (in the first instance).

10

Was she in the store when you checked out? Could she see the amount on the register, and subtracted it from 100? Of course that’s assuming you paid in cash and didn’t have change on you to begin with.

Or maybe she has a cell phone and a friend at the register.

11

The OP’s change (in the first case) wasn’t from a transaction in the store.

12

Right, but in that case, why was the OP “about to start my car”?

13

Was she by any chance wearing “X-Ray Specs”?

14

What does that have to do with the problem?

15

Well, it makes it sound like the OP has possibly forgotten a detail or messed something up, because why WOULD you be sitting in the Safeway parking lot about to start your car if you hadn’t even gone into the store yet?

16

Hopefully the OP will return to clarify the details.

17

Um, to get away from the emaciated psychic lady beggars that roam the parking lot?

18

Hang out with her, see if she does it every time. Then offer to help her win a million for a cut.
James Randi of course.

19

S-S-S-S-S! hissed the Lady Beggolum. It must give us three guesses, my precious, three guesseses…

20

So she pulled into the parking lot, got out of the car, saw a lady beggar and was preparing to hop back into the car to drive away but wasn’t fast enough?

In any case, clearly the OP is proof of ESP.