Over the course of the last few days, I’ve had an inordinate number of deadbeats asking me for handouts. Each of the last few times I’ve went to get gas, there has been someone who comes up to me, doesn’t say “excuse me” or “pardon me,” or any other polite greeting one might consider to a complete stranger, and just straight up asks me for money.
And it’s not like “hey man got any change” or asking for loose currency that could be considered negligible to me, but could turn into something substantial for them. These guys have been straight up asking “got a few bucks I can have?” A few bucks? Why the fuck would I want to give a complete stranger a few bucks, when I could probably make better use of a few bucks? A few bucks easily gets me Taco Bell because I fucking love Taco Bell, and I sure as shit ain’t going to forfeit Taco Bell for some beggar. Or a few bucks goes into the collection of some other few bucks, and turns into many bucks that I could use on something for me, or my needs, because it’s money that I’ve earned.
The best part is that the last guy that asked me for a few bucks, was so he could get something to eat. But after I rebuffed him, I saw in the corner of my eye as he pulled a fucking cell phone out of his pocket and made a phone call, or at least tried to make it look like he was making a call on his probably TracFone with no more pre-paid minutes. Motherfucker has a cell phone, but is asking complete strangers so he could get something to eat? Not to mention he was wearing a pretty clean looking name-brand sweat suit. We seem to have a reached some kind of a logical impasse here.
Looking back at this, I kind of wish that I had the nerve to go up to him and ask if he’d sell me his phone for four dollars. So he could get something to eat. And when he predictably tells me it’s worth more than that, I could lecture to him that he should then go sell it for that much, because the last time I checked, the necessity of sustenance trumped the necessity for a cell phone. And if he sold me his cell phone? I probably would have put it underneath my car’s tire and run it over on the way out, just to be mean-spirited.
This morning, which is what made me decide I wanted to write about the subject, I’m in line at Starbucks, and I see some guy walk in the door, and appear to cut in front of everyone else. But he wasn’t cutting as much he was walking down the line and simply asking people “can you buy me a coffee?” as if everyone were his parent, and he were begging for a fucking Happy Meal. Naturally, everyone said no, including a fairly incredulous one from me.
Naturally, the person behind me is the one that says yes, so I’m the one that looks like an asshole. But regardless, when I heard the person actually say “yes,” I then hear this bum say “a large coffee,” the ungrateful sack of shit. After I get my coffee and walk, I glance back to see who agreed to buy the bum some coffee, and this girl I recognize as another Starbucks regular, who often looks as sweet and kind as she was to agree to buy some bum some coffee, but it’s still propagating behavior like begging.
I guess what I’m most baffled about is the fact that all these people recently who have been begging and panhandling to me, none of them really look like they’re actually homeless bums or anything. They’re often times fairly discreet in appearance, and if not for the fact that they’re deliberately asking me for money or to buy them things, I would never have guessed that they were bums in the first place.
But at the same time, it disgusts me that there are people like this that resort to begging in the first place. As mentioned, it’s questionable to whether or not these guys are actually homeless, but they’re still begging like they’re homeless. It makes me just think they’re lazy motherfuckers asking for handouts in lieu of them actually doing something to earn it, to which I find as detestable behavior. Laziness is a pet peeve of mine, and sure, we’re all subject to bouts of where we don’t want to do anything, but most of us still have jobs and responsibilities we still do whether we want to do them or not, and we’re not relegated to brazenly asking people for handouts. In a way, I’m not surprised that homeless people are begging for money, but I am surprised that people who really don’t appear to be homeless, are.
And as the subject says, they could at least fucking say “please.” “Yo man, got a few bucks so I can get somethin’ to eat,” doesn’t exactly make me even remotely eager to be generous or charitable. In fact, I’m pretty sure the simple unspoken verbiage on the signs of most homeless people are more cordial and polite than that of lines these seemingly lazy bums are begging with.
