Posted on 12/01/2012 5:13:46 AM PST by LoveUSA
Just yesterday I was leaving the food store with my 83 year old mother in my car when we encountered an old woman holding a piece of cardboard that said "homeless" (quotes were included). This old woman made eye contact with me and her scraggly gray hair, her worn clothing, and her pathetic help me expression really stirred up my sympathy. When I stopped at the stop sign near where the begging woman was standing I said to my mother, "Let's give her some something, it's Christmas". We came up with a five dollar bill and my mother waved it out the window. The begging woman took it and smiled with the few teeth she had left.
Then the semi-toothless, pathetic-looking, scraggly-haired old woman said, "Thanks! My grandkids want a video game for Christmas."
I had a couple of people approach me at a gas station at different times with the same story, they said they were trying to get somewhere and were out of gas (they were in a car).
I was feeling generous that day and gave them money, but afterwards I was PO’ed after realizing their story made no sense. They just asked at the right time when I didn’t feel like thinking.
One time in SF my then manager and I were walking down the street and a beggarly guy came up to us and I gave him a quarter. He then turns to my manager and says ‘and you sir, what about you? My beggar turned out to be a hustler simply selling his act and he’s not the only one. There’s so many of them everywhere it seems.
I agree that many panhandlers are scammers but to some extent Goodwill is also.
If you begin researching Goodwill more and more articles like this keep popping up.
But my brother told me a story of when he was working in Baltimore City and was standing outside his workplace having a smoke. This homeless guy came up to my brother asking for change and my brother asked him “So why do you need money?” The scruffy guy looked my brother straight in the eye and said, “To tell you the honest truth man, I really need a drink”. My brother was so impressed with his honesty that he gave him a $10 bill, telling him not to spend it all on booze but to also get something to eat. He also pointed to the Catholic Church across the street and told him that they had a soup kitchen and also had regular AA meetings there. My brother BTW was not an alcoholic but had a good friend who got sober in AA.
Many years ago, early 1980’s, both my brother and his wife were out of work, were waiting for an unemployment check and didn’t know how they were going to make ends meet live alone how to have any sort of Christmas for their three young children. My husband and I were helping as much as we could but we, being newly married and struggling ourselves with me also having just lost my job at the time, could not do much except help them with some food.
But that Christmas Eve morning they found a great big box on their front porch filled with toys, wrapping paper and ribbons along with a crisp $100 bill. To this day they have no idea who their anonymous benefactor was; either a neighbor or a former co-worker or someone from their church who knew of their struggles. But every Christmas since, when my brother and his wife can afford to do so, they find a family in need in a similar circumstance through a neighbor, a friend of a friend, someone that one of their now adult kids know, someone from their Parish, etc. and they do the same thing and do so anonymously. I think now days it’s called “Paying it Forward”. They were so grateful for what someone did for them that they feel a need to do the same for someone else.
And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
I was going to visit my Mother via Greyhound. Had a 4 hour layover in Chicago and I’d never been there so wandered around the downtown area for a bit.
Bought a skein of floss for the cross stitch project I was passing my bus-time on and then made my way to a cafe for dinner. It was misty with fog coming in off the lake and chilly.
A woman holding a toddler had two other children in tow and asked if i could help her. She said she’d lost her bus transfer and couldn’t get home. The children were clean but none had a coat or jacket. I asked her how much a bus transfer cost, she said $2. I gave her the 2 bucks, told her ‘God bless you’ and went into the cafe.
The waitress asked me what the woman had wanted, I told her, in disgust she said that the Mother probably makes a pretty good living asking for bus-xfer money.
As I ate I examined how I felt about probably being scammed and found I didn’t care. I’d sleep well that night, any guilt necessary belonged to the woman and it was possible she really was a stranded Mother.
Hey, don’t beat yourself up. The scammer in chief is back in office placed their by a scammer electorate.
I had one of the “I’m stuck out of town and need gas money” many years ago. I had my nephew with me. Was a bit of an uncomfortable conversation when I didn’t give to him, but that cleared up a week later when we saw him doing the same thing in another part of town (yeah, not another guy doing the same thing - but the same guy).
I have been panhandled at gas stations a couple of times - hood up, need a part, family in the back. Guy has a cell phone, no credit card...tells me he has no family (mother, father, brother, sisters, friends) to call for help. It did not add up. Two months later, I see the same scammer at another gas station with the hood up, approach me and . . .
Even better. . .panhandled at the airport baggage claim in Philadelphia... scammer wanted 200 to stay in nearby hotel so he could catch his next flight. Showed me his drivers license, had an i-phone (I only have a flip phone) and promised that he would mail $250 the next day. I asked him how he bought his airline ticket why Motel 6 was not good enough for him, no debit card? no credit card? and when I asked him if he thought of calling his parents on his i-phone for help . . . he left.
When ever we invite my brother and his wife over for dinner, I make them hold up a handmade sign that reads
WILL WORK FOR SHRIMP CREOLE while I take their picture.
Is that mean?
Down in Worcester MA the low life beggars are on just about every street corner. While I was waiting at a light I saw a beggar working the line of cars. He was walking up to each car with a very pronounced limp, the light changed and the limp suddenly disappeared.
Here’s a bum-scammer video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yVSyw7TnODk
I’ve let my guard down in the past and gave to a bum or two - no more....I’m going Galt on Bums:)
in 1990 my company selected two families for xmas spirit with skip and I being the ramrods. Both of us visited COSTCO and really got the xmas spirit. On 24th we had to use skip’s station wagon because of so many stuff for just one family. We loaded the 1st family’s gifts which filled the back completely. Arrived at home with middle age woman and 14 year old teen. All she could do was complain because we didn’t get the shoes she wanted. We felt like two suckers. The next family was a mother with three kids 7,5,adn 4. The two oldest tried helping us carry it in. The mother cried from the moment we arrived until we left.
In the mid-90s a DFW TV station did a report on panhandlers — those who ‘sell’ roses or wash windows, hold up ‘work for food’ signs, etc., at major intersections.
Reporter interviewed one panhandler and asked why he did it. He responded that it was better than working for a boss, as he could ‘work’ whenever he wanted. He went on to say that he collected around $25,000 (tax free) per year from his panhandling.
“He was walking up to each car with a very pronounced limp...”
A friend of mine went shopping and her kids saw a man in a wheelchair. He had a sign that said “Please help, hungry, disabled, can’t work”. Well, her girls just felt horrible and begged their Mother to give him some money. She said she didn’t think he was truly wheelchair bound... his legs were muscular. Long story short, she saw him a few days later wheeling behind the shopping center so she followed him via her car. Sure enough.. he walks out of his wheelchair and into a pickup truck. I think what annoyed her the most was the “guilt” that her girls imposed... or tried to impose. All in all, it was a good learning lesson IMHO.
I try to avoid panhandlers but I use my intuition and hope it is right but if I do the right thing, it doesn’t matter, I can feel good about it.
OTOH, I mostly give to people I know. The guy who had a traumatic brain injury and just walks around town, he rarely asks for anything and when he does it is for milk or Dr. Pepper. He has also brought me chocolate and if I ask him to do something is always willing. He voted for Romney and almost cried when he lost.
There is a group home for mentally challenged adults near where I work and they often walk by so I offer them treats and like children they are very thankful and, I think, happy that I talk to them.
The miracle guy with AIDS who needs rides occaisionally.
Then there are just the regular people that have low paying jobs who are in tough circumstances. I am meeting a woman this morning to show her how I want my MIL’s storeroom cleaned. I got started on it yesterday and got overwhelmed and thought about how she was having tough times and called her. It is something she can do anytime of the day or night and still do her regular job and I get to help her and relieve myself of an onerous burden.
I suspect the recently well publicized incident where the police officer bought boots and socks for the bare footed homeless man might have involved at least some well thought out planning, if not some actual scamming. Was it good luck that the bare feet were so prominently visible ... right beside a shoe store?
You gave me an idea. I want to get some fake dollars with King BOZerO’s image on it and hand these out to beggar/scammers. Fake president on fake money for fake beggars.
How’s that for a trifecta-—or rather a tri-fakeya?
Good for you, that's the only thing that really matters......
I try to shop at my local Meijer store early in the morning between 5:30 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. Usually at that time the cleaning crew, which is made up of hispanics from south America rather than Mexico, are finishing up. I watch them when I'm there and they are never idle or talking to each other. They are constantly on the move, doing their jobs.
I picked up three money gift cards this morning at the store and I intend to put $50 in each and pass them out to three of the ladies.......In sure they can put it to better use than my nieces and nephews....and it'll make me feel good.
Although I have not seen him recently, there was a man with a sign that varied in message, at Exit 59 on I 81. Curiously, he was sometimes at Exit 77 on I 81 about 90 miles north.
he was clean but always had 3 or 4 days whiskers.
could he make money? Perhaps $10 or $12 per hour, more than many jobs?
I think so.
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