spare change
Friends of mine are writing about what people say to get money. Around here I've noticed a different tack from what they're seeing:
Why lie? Need booze and smokes. Anything helps. God bless. It's not just hand-lettered cardboard, either:
"Hey..."
"Yes?"
"Listen I need a little change, I'm not gonna lie to you I need a drink but..."
Then there are the kids. Youth, really, 14-25 or so and clustered in doorways and on corners, usually with a dog on a scrap of rope; usually the dog is the best off of the lot. They don't have excuses or explanations, just tattered fingerless gloves and bandanas and army pants with the pockets ripped free. I don't know why they're there, but I can think of half a dozen possibilities--more than once I missed the streets by a cosmic hiccup and the compassion of relative strangers.
Last summer I saw a young woman on the main drag three or so blocks from the hub of downtown, huddled in an unused delivery entrance for the big, posh department store. Her sign said the usual: spare change, anything helps... and she must've seen something 'cause she asked me for money. I stopped and looked at her, then said,
"I'm going to get a sandwich. Can I get you something?"
She looked like she could use it.
"Yeah, that'd be great." She still had the edges of her childhood hanging around her face--someone somewhere once taught her that the world will sometimes be a good place to be.
So I asked her what she wanted, guessed about dressings, and brought her a sandwich bigger than she was. My first thought was to follow Cornell West's reputed example and invite her to join me for my meal, but finally I decided to deliver it and move on--I don't like to presume that a 17-ish year old necessarily wants to have lunch with someone she's never met...especially when she probably has friends and a very empty stomach. (I don't know many youth who voluntarily spend time with random adults they don't know). So I left her with orange juice and water and a meatball sub; I don't know if she saved it or shared it, but I do know that for every one you see there are ten you don't so there were plenty of places that food could go.
And what if I bought her some food she could have gotten herself? Then she's still gonna have one more chance to see the world as a compassionate place.
In general, that's what I figure: random generosity increases hope.*
And we could all use more hope.
---
* It does occur to me that someone somewhere did some experiments with rats and other animals and random negative stimuli which couldn't be controlled by the animals. Eventually those animals became hopeless. I think the nature of the stimulus matters: random negativity generates hopelessness, random positvity generates hope.
Why lie? Need booze and smokes. Anything helps. God bless. It's not just hand-lettered cardboard, either:
"Hey..."
"Yes?"
"Listen I need a little change, I'm not gonna lie to you I need a drink but..."
Then there are the kids. Youth, really, 14-25 or so and clustered in doorways and on corners, usually with a dog on a scrap of rope; usually the dog is the best off of the lot. They don't have excuses or explanations, just tattered fingerless gloves and bandanas and army pants with the pockets ripped free. I don't know why they're there, but I can think of half a dozen possibilities--more than once I missed the streets by a cosmic hiccup and the compassion of relative strangers.
Last summer I saw a young woman on the main drag three or so blocks from the hub of downtown, huddled in an unused delivery entrance for the big, posh department store. Her sign said the usual: spare change, anything helps... and she must've seen something 'cause she asked me for money. I stopped and looked at her, then said,
"I'm going to get a sandwich. Can I get you something?"
She looked like she could use it.
"Yeah, that'd be great." She still had the edges of her childhood hanging around her face--someone somewhere once taught her that the world will sometimes be a good place to be.
So I asked her what she wanted, guessed about dressings, and brought her a sandwich bigger than she was. My first thought was to follow Cornell West's reputed example and invite her to join me for my meal, but finally I decided to deliver it and move on--I don't like to presume that a 17-ish year old necessarily wants to have lunch with someone she's never met...especially when she probably has friends and a very empty stomach. (I don't know many youth who voluntarily spend time with random adults they don't know). So I left her with orange juice and water and a meatball sub; I don't know if she saved it or shared it, but I do know that for every one you see there are ten you don't so there were plenty of places that food could go.
And what if I bought her some food she could have gotten herself? Then she's still gonna have one more chance to see the world as a compassionate place.
In general, that's what I figure: random generosity increases hope.*
And we could all use more hope.
---
* It does occur to me that someone somewhere did some experiments with rats and other animals and random negative stimuli which couldn't be controlled by the animals. Eventually those animals became hopeless. I think the nature of the stimulus matters: random negativity generates hopelessness, random positvity generates hope.
posted by raj at
8:15 AM
2 Comments:
I have a policy about people begging on the street. (It isn't a firm policy-- so maybe it is more of a guideline...) I don't give people money who are just asking for it. Sometimes, if I've got the money and I can swing it, I'll offer thems something helpful (food, drink, bus ticket, gas, etc.).
Street performers are an entirely different matter. Any street performer that makes me smile or stop gets whatever money I can afford out of my pocket. Which leads me to my favortite intersection of the two.
I'm walking down my favorite street in the whole wide world and I see a young girl (late teens maybe?) sitting on the sidewalk with an upturned hat and cardboard sign. She looks like she might be homeless, or maybe just slumming. (Hard to say.) The cardboard reads:
"Will babble incoherently and pretend to tell your fortune for a dollar."
I can't help but laugh. Per my policy (guideline), I reach in my pocket and throw a dollar in her hat. She looks at me, rolls her eyes wildly back and forth, babbles in a sing song voice for about thirty seconds, then snaps her eyes back on to me. She reaches down and grabs my (now hers) dollar and says,
"You will spend your money unwisely."
I laughed. She laughed.
To this day, I don't know if she was right or wrong.
But it still makes me laugh.
By
Anonymous, at 1:57 PM
[feel free to approve part or none of this...]
Yep, those experiments were what coined the term, "learned helplessness," and the opposite effect you're describing is, erm, "empowerment." :-) But we who give money are also being conditioned... our experiences with panhandlers affect our susceptibility to similar tactics in the future.
I've had mixed results offering panhandlers food, because I want them to sit and talk with me, and they don't want to. In fact, they rarely seem to want to do anything more than rattle a cup for my money and get indignant when I suggest it. (Maybe I should try that with my clients! What do you mean I should work? I wrote you an invoice, didn't I?)
The one exception was a guy who offered to sing me a song he had composed -- he was really excited for the opportunity to perform it. He got about halfway through it and then got too self-conscious, so he switched to a Pet Shop Boys cover. All the same I was glad I'd asked, and I paid him well for it.
The most recent time I was panhandled was in the grocery store; guy said he and his wife wanted to buy a chicken on sale and were $2 short. He had a woman with him, chickens were indeed on sale, and they were all pretty large, so it was a very plausible story, even though he reeked of booze. But when I gave him the money, he headed in the opposite direction from the meat department, and I saw the two of them checking out a few minutes later with only a bag of noodles. $2 won't buy much alcohol, but with a line like that he could have hit up every shopper in the store.
I can't help feeling like the dog in the cage; doing nothing looks like the least negative option.
(hoping to read your response!)
By
Anonymous, at 6:37 PM
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