Bums

This spring, when I was helping my daughter move out of her apartment in Eugene, I got hit up for some spare change. We had been carrying stuff downstairs and loading it into the truck for a while and I was getting tired. I had just finished carrying a  load when a guy walking across the street asks me if I've got thirty-eight cents. What? No, I don't have thirty-eight cents. Who asks for thirty-eight cents anyway? What is he thinking? That I'm going to go root around looking for exact change so I can give him exactly thirty-eight cents? I'm tired, I'm working, he's asking me right while I am in the middle of loading something into the truck, and he wants exact change. He didn't look like a bum, he looked like a student, but his request made him look like an idiot. As tired as I was, if he had offered to help, I would have hired him to help load. Shoot, if his timing had been a little better and if had asked for a reasonable amount of money, like a buck or two, I would have given it to him. Change? Who bothers with change anymore?

A few weeks ago we picked up a couple of ice cream cones from the drive through at our local McDonalds. I noticed a guy panhandling just outside the front door. His clothes were dirty, but his hair was reasonably short. No harm, no foul. A couple of days later I pull into a spot in the lot and the same guy comes right up to my (open) window and asks for money. I gave him a very firm, possibly even harsh, no. I don't know exactly what bugged me about this guy. Maybe he was being too agressive, maybe I think panhandlers should be more deferential: he wasn't following proper panhandling protocol. Ticked me off.

For a while I was seeing people at entrance and exit ramps on the freeways. Don't see them there anymore. Don't know whether they have given it up or whether the police have cracked down on them.

I really don't know how to deal with panhandlers. I don't run into them that often, so if I gave them a buck, or even a fiver every time I saw one, it wouldn't really amount to a hill of beans. But I do resent them insinuating themselves into my world, having to stop and talk to them about something that does not interest me, interrupt my conversation or train of thought or my mission, should I have anything going on. And then there is the decisions to be made: do I give them any money or not? What the "authorities" would have you believe is that they are all alcoholics or junkies and are just going to use whatever money you give them to get their next bottle or fix, so you shouldn't give them any money. But is that true? Maybe they are just out on the street and need a couple of bucks to get something to eat, or they are trying to raise enough money to pay the rent. There are a lot of people out of work and things don't look like they are going to get any better any time soon. I just wish the deserving bums would wear a badge so I could tell at glance whether it was okay to give them any money.