Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Panhandling to a Cold Heartless Bitch

Maybe I am a cold heartless bitch, but I never give money to people who ask for it on the street. The main reason I don’t do it is because it think it is highly dangerous to open your purse in front of a stranger, take your wallet out, and let them see how much money you have. I just think that is stupid and, frankly, asking to become a victim.

I also don’t do it because I donate to charity and I volunteer quite a bit of my time. I really do feel as if I give back to my community. Could I do more? Sure - everyone could do more for their community. But I give what I can considering my circumstances. In addition, the very nature of my job could be considered charity, mostly because I could make twice as much money selling my soul as a corporate lawyer in a big firm.

But, deep down, in my heart of hearts, I know the reason I don’t give to panhandlers is because I think panhandling is rude. When I am walking down the street (particularly downtown Peoria), I am on my way somewhere. I am not just wandering aimlessly, strolling along waiting for someone to talk to me. I just don’t have time to listen to your sob story about your mother’s sisters’ uncle’s dog’s baby needing a foot operation and you can’t get there because you are too weak from the medical problem to hail a cab or eat or dress or whatever and just a few dollars will help you get there. I don’t have the time - I am going somewhere, or did my determined footsteps and failure to slow down not clue you into that?

And besides, I never buy these stories. Some people say, "I don’t give them money because they aren’t going to buy food - they’re going to buy drugs or alcohol!!" You know what, I don’t care if the panhandler is going to buy a Big Mac or an 8-ball of crack with the money he gets from begging. He can do whatever he wants with it - he earned it by duping someone into giving it to him. The problem lies with the people giving him money.

Yesterday, I was crossing Main Street downtown and a woman starting yelling at me from across the street. I was crossing toward her, but I couldn’t tell what she was saying until I was close to her. She gave me this big story about how her car ran out of gas (just down the block, next the Pere Marquette) and the gas station "just over there" wanted five dollars for a gas can and she only had three dollars and she needed to get to the hospital to see her mom.

I said, as politely as possible, "Sorry, I can’t help you" and turned to walk away. She said, "But ma’am, it’s really true - you can go get in my car and try to start it. I ran outta gas!" I said, "I’m sorry, but I am on my way somewhere" and turned to leave again.

It was then that I felt a hand on my sleeve. She touched me! I spun around to glare at her, but she only continued, "The man at the gas station just over there won’t give me a gas can without five dollars. Don’t you have a few dollars you could spare?" I held my hand out and said, "No, I have no cash with me right now" and backed away. She then turned bitchy and said, "FINE, WHATever" and walked away in a huff.

You see, I knew she was lying from the beginning. Aside from my dim view of all stories told to me by people in the street, this story’s facts didn’t add up. There is no gas station "just over there" in downtown Peoria in relation to the corner we were standing on. The nearest gas station is more than six blocks away, over the interstate. By the looks of her, there was no way she had just walked from her car (by the Pere) to that BP station and then back. Her hands weren’t frozen, her ears and cheeks weren’t red, and she wasn’t all that cold looking, considering she only had a sweatshirt on. But more than the lying, what really irritated me was that she felt she was entitled to a handout from a complete stranger on the street.

So as not to be misconstrued, this is not a statement about welfare recipients or any needy people who receive public aid of any kind. I believe we should, as a country, provide for those who are unable to provide for themselves in whatever ways necessary. I also believe we should do much, much more than we do now to address poverty and sub-standard living in this country. But this entails a system - a way of monitoring who is really in need of assistance and who isn’t and getting the right assistance to the right people. She couldn’t go into some public aid office and lie about her circumstances to get assistance. (Well, she could, I guess, but would risk prosecution.) She shouldn’t be able to get money out of me the same way.

Does that make me a cold heartless bitch? Well, I've been called worse.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

So what if it does? I've been hit with the same bullshit story, by a man. First, he just needed $3 for gas, his car ran out of gas. When I asked him what he was going to put the gas in, he thought for a minute, and came up with some story about the gas station giving him a can. Right. I did the same thing -- I don't carry cash. If there had been touching, I would have threatened to or called 9-1-1.

Anonymous said...

You should have told her that you can't talk per doctors orders. Hopefully that would have confused her enough.

Anonymous said...

Ahh the old gas can trick.

I was walking home from Avanti's along Main Street when a guy started following me and asked for a smoke. Ok, once in a while I'll give out a smoke if only because it cost me 15 cents or so and I don't care to get punched in the nose over 15 cents.

As I walked home, Gondola in hand, he decided to walk with me and went on to tell me that he needed gas for his car which was just "down here by Bradley." Well, I was walking that way too, so I couldn't really shake him and I made sure I kept on Main instead of walking down the darker neighborhood streets or alleys like usual, but I kept asking where the out of gas car was that he somehow thought I could help by peeing in it or something. He kept saying "oh, just a little farther up here".

When it came time for me to exit Main for my street he protested; I don't know where he wanted to take me, but it certainly wasn't well lit and busy Main St. I told him he could HAVE my gas can, which had gas in it.

We actually had a discussion about (you'll never believe this) the grade of gas in my gas can. My lawn mower only requires cheap gas. His broken down car apparently only runs on 91 octane gas.

I'm thankful that he didn't follow me home and take me up on my offer, and I'm also grateful that I gave him a cigarette or it's quite possible he would've taken not only my wallet, but my Gondola.

I can only think that somehow my being friendly and giving him a smoke saved me from being mugged. As I turned down my street and said goodbye, he also turned around to walk back to Avanti's and work on another sucker.

Anonymous said...

You think you're a cold heartless bitch? I wonder what I am, as I no longer feel the need to lie.

Can you help me out? "I could, but I'm not going to." - "kiss my ****** *****" - "eat *****" - or I'll pull out the phone, call 911, and start following them when they start to walk away. take your pick. the question flips my bitch switch.

Knight in Dragonland said...

You should have told her she could have the five bucks if she came up with a more original story than the old "I ran out of gas" trick. A homeless guy in D.C. tried that one on my parents on a vacation in '84!

Anonymous said...

I live near Main and University and have grown VERY tired of the pandhandling. When hit on, I direct them to the Mission, tell them that panhandling is illegal, ask them to leave the area and let them know that I will call the police if I see again.

Anonymous said...

I honestly do this, I leave one dollar bill in my back pocket at all times. (unless I'm not wearing pockets) that way if I happen to get panhandled, I just reach into my pocket and give it to them, and hurriedly walk away. This usually works for me. I guess I just believe in karma that way. Someday...I hope that it gets returned to me. But...thats just me, my boyfriend calls me a hippy liberal. LOL.

He's partially right.

:o)

Anonymous said...

As a young kid fresh out of High School I visited my brother, a hippie liberal in his own right, who had moved to New York. Having never traversed a big city on my own before he gave me two pieces of advice.

1. Don't look a panhandler in the eye, and don't give them money. Just walk on by.

2. If you see a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable, cross to the other side of the street.

Well, he also said don't walk around staring up at the sky scrapers all the time or pull out a city map, but that's not really relevant to this conversation.

Oh yea, there is an exception to point 1- giving money to a musician in a subway is ok.

Anonymous said...

I actually had a woman show up at my back door and ask for money. My back door! At my home! She said her mother had just been taken to the hospital in an ambulance and she needed to get down there, but had inadvertently locked her purse and keys in her house. The locksmith wouldn't work on getting her into the house unless she paid him first, so she needed money. She told me her house number and street -- an address just a block or so away. She also said she'd pay me back right after she got in the house and got her purse.

I gave her money. I still am not quite sure why. I usually walk right past these people on the street, saying "sorry" but not stopping. I think it must be because it was so completely unexpected. Did I mention she showed up at my back door? This was in the summer when it was warm out and the back door was open and I was standing in the kitchen near the door and she just walked up and gave me her sob story. I'm relatively new to the neighborhood (only here two years), and I want to be a good neighbor. Still, I instinctively new she was lying and had to deliberately override my suspicions in order to fork over the cash. Was it that I was worried that this person knew where I lived and I feared for my family's safety? Was it that I couldn't come up with an easy excuse like when you pass someone on the street and didn't want to just come out and say, "I don't believe you; go away"?

A short time later, just to satisfy my suspicions, I walked down the street to look for the address she gave me, figuring it was a vacant house or something. I was sort of right. The address didn't exist.

Boy, was I a sucker. Time to get a gun.