The Changing Face of Panhandling

I've always been a donator when it comes to such things. Oh sure, there are a lot of valid reasons not to give in to change-askers, such as it will just goes to drugs and doesn't help the asker at all, or quite possibly said handler make $80k / year doing pretending to be homeless and your dimes would only feed a corrupt system, but I don't care. If I have some spare change, it's all yours. The only time I recall flat out denying someone some pocket leavins was when the same dude gave me the same story for the second time at a whole new location"we're trying to make it to Hemet and we're running on fumes," several months after the first round. If my $0.47 didn't help you get there the first time, it certainly won't now. What can I say, I hate being lied to. Speaking of which:

My favourite such story occured in Oakland, getting gas on a road trip on the way to San Francisco some years back. I witnessed what coulda shoulda woulda been a homeless guy, or at least some dude a little down on his luck, sitting across the gas station from me, calling out to get my attention:

"Hey man, com'ere a minute, I got a question for you."
(This dude wants some change.)
"What's the question bro, I don't need to walk over there to hear it."
"Nah man, it's embarassing, just com'ere a minute."
(I'm not walking into that trap, he might rape me.)
"Well if you don't want to shout it, you can come over here and ask me."
(Whoops.)

After this went back and forth several times he did in fact waltz over toward me. The fucker was huge, I'm talking HUGE. Now, I rarely carry more than about $40 on me at any given time, but I was on vacation and happened to have about $300 cash in my wallet. Even if this dude was friendly there was a size issue and no way in hell was I going to reach into my gangster roll and pull out a single for him. That could have meant death. Anyhow, as I silently began to suspect the continuity of my own mortal coil for much longer on this particular ride, the two of us had a discussion involving the merits of dealing with panhandling. He was upset that several times people had told him "oh, let me run to the ATM real quick for you," only to disappear. "Look, if you aren't going to give me any money just say no, don't lie to me!" He's right you know. So I gave him a wad of quarters/dimes/pennies and wished him luck, and I've never been back to Oakland since.

Anyhow, things are changing in this field. Oh sure, the usual suspects still apply, but now I'm seeing non-homeless types asking for a little handout. A few months ago an elderly woman of seemingly sound body and mind approached me in a supermarket parking lot, with stupid me assuming it was to either help her lift something heavy or give her car a jump. Nope, she wanted some change. Everybody's good enough for some change, and I relinquished as per usual. Then last night's experience was a new twist, for a few reasons. First, the woman was quite young, and did not look destitute in the least. We had a short conversation concerning the Cthulhu emblem on the back of my car, and she seemed to know who Lovecraft was despite never reading the master's work, which I of course recommended. Anyhow, after the usual handover of something like $0.74, she asked for "just one more thing," and for a moment, I had no idea what this additional query might involve. "Can you put a few dollars on your card as well?" My bullshit detector pretty much exploded at that point, and I figured if I didn't get the hell out of there as quickly as I could my entire credit history would be shipped off on a fast boat to Nigeria. I mumbled something about being out of a job for awhile and no, I could not do that, to which we shook hands and wished one another mutual luck.