Monday, April 25, 2005

Yever Wonder?

Yever wonder how drug addicts come up with their stories when asking for money? A person I vaguely know showed up at my door the other night about 8:30. She wanted to use the phone to call her son at his job so that he could come pick her up because she missed her bus. Well, the funny thing is that the buses stopped running about 2 hours before she showed up at my house. And it's not like she was at work or something, she doesn't have a job. I don't know, it just sounds fishy. One night she asked my sister for $10.00 because the alternator in her car had gone out and she needed the money to pay the mechanic. Now, I'm wondering where she found a mechanic who works on alternators for $10.00. I want to meet this guy.

And of course, there is always the guy who comes to the door asking for money because his car broke down 2 miles up the road and his wife has cancer and he's trying to get his baby girl to the doctor for an earache and $8.00 is all he needs for some gas for his car. Now...I'm thinking "Buddy, if your car is where you say it is, you had to have walked past 4 service stations to get to my house. Surely, somebody would have helped you out long before you got this far". Nope, doesn't pass the smell test. I wish they would just say "hey, I need some crack, can ya loan me some money". At least that wouldn't make me shake my head so much. I once saw a guy asleep on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco with a sign propped up that read "Why lie, it's for beer". I was tempted to donate just because he was honest.

Yever wonder?

1 comment:

Some Soldier's Mom said...

yeah, I wonder...

When I worked in NYC, there were always these people begging on the streets -- same people same corner day in, day out... Laying bedraggled, wrapped in an old blanket next to the building... One would have a sign saying "Have major medical bills for wife", "Have HIV, can't work" and some would panhandle saying that they needed money for bus fare to get home to _____ (fill in with your favotrite city) Only the guy would still be panhandling there three weeks later with the same story.

The TV stations ran stories on some of them -- they'd walk down to the subway with their shopping bag, go into the ladies' room and emerge in designer clothes and go to their houses in the 'burbs!

I'm certainly not saying that there aren't the truly needy -- there are more than there should be in this country -- but the scam artists certainly do make ya wonder!