A stout middle-aged fella has sat down at the table next to me and picked up his cell phone. He has a booming voice.
"Can you loan me tweny dollas. I'll pay you back on Monday?"
Listening
"On Monday...Monday I get my unemployment check."
Listening
"Well I made twenty dollars holding the sign yesterday and I'll make another twenty today and then Monday I get my unemployment check."
Listening
"Yeah between that and my unemployment check I should be able to make it next week."
Listening
"No. I am not going to give any of my money to no woman."
Listening
"It was a fella wanted to hire me to work for ten dollars an hour paintin' some apartments, but it's up in Canton."
Listening
"Yeah it's up in Canton, but I ain't got no car."
Listening
"So what about that twenty?"
Let's review...he's sat down and announced for all to hear that a) he needs to borrow money, b) he's on unemployment, c) he could be working but the job is in Canton (Canton's nine miles from here. No further than from here to West Jackson where he claims to live).
If you're in a tight brother...fine. It happens, but dignity is free.
First of all, handle your business in private. Secondly, get off your a** and find a way to Canton. Have some respect for yourself.
(Nevermind those that may be paying for your coffee and cell phone bill).
I despise this kind of bullying, hectoring and intimidation, twinned on the other arm of the pincer movement with implied guilt and social obligation. I'd prefer it if they - let's use the dehumanising third-person plural pronoun - came right out with it and just ask upfront for the readies for: drugs/beer/lottery tickets/food for the kids, etc.(strike as applicable).
ReplyDeleteOf course, I'm still going to say "no", but in the process they have earned something much more valuable than the purchasing power of legal tender, my respect. The worst offenders are the commission-fuelled charity workers who harangue you on the streets as you go about your business, shacking collection boxes in your face with some half-baked appeal to magnanimity of spirit and the starving victims. I like to remind them of Matthew, 26:11 , “For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.”
I don't mean to sound hard-hearted, but if I do, that's because I am: I despise the word “charity” (not the concept), whose currency has been debased by celebrity endorsement and gratuitous, self-serving, public gestures of generosity. We are all someone's child, we are all each others' responsibility, and charity is but one among a whole raft of actions and changes that are needed to make this world a better place for all.
The most successful charity organisations are the banks and other, allied, quasi-financial institutions. Not only do they have a very generous revolving-door employment policy towards regulators and policy makers, but they understand, in the uniquely ego-maniacal way of a true believer, the basic tenet of “charity begins at home”. Their ability to successfully transfer wealth from the poor to the aspirationally status hungry, is a testament to their graft and temerity; so much so, you'd hardly know you were giving at all, at least voluntarily.
ReplyDeleteI am going to step of my soap box now and take my soap bar to the shower.
ReplyDeleteWe don't post in the hope of generating silence.
ReplyDeleteGet youself a few burs and come on back.
THIS (and not baseball) ought to be what you submit to the magazine, chief. no doubt.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'll shoot a copy over to Donna Ladd...see how that works out.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget Lincoln Steffens of "The Shame of the Cities" fame - have a first edition - one of the first muckrakers. And not forgetting Ida M. Tarbell (an appropriate surname, given her penchant for taking on the oil barons) and George Seldes, etc.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQcZeDcwokA
Not that I need to come to your defence; however, pace, Allan, you did publish it here. "Horses for courses", as the pundits say.
May I respectfully suggest the submission should be pitched with the byline "Beggars Belief".
ReplyDeleteThere, I just LOLed myself. LOL.
Those charity workers we tend to call 'chuggers' (charity muggers). Myself and my brother have a unique and geeky way of dealign with them, when they come up to you simply sweep your palm across their face and say 'these aren't the driods your looking for', by the time their little tie dyed ragged dreadlocked heads have worked out what you did, you are out of there!
ReplyDeleteI prefer the "Han shot first" solution. Greedo - such an appropriate appellation.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJDTU9JYjMM
"Chuggers" thanks for reminding me of nomenclature - the word I was searching for at the time. They're worse than the Somali pirates; unfortunately for me, I have to walk past one of their favourite hijack spots everyday.
ReplyDeleteChuggers...haha.
ReplyDelete"Maybe I'll shoot a copy over to Donna Ladd...see how that works out."
ReplyDeleteNo, you have to do it in person. Preferably with a camera handy. I, for one, would pay to see the expression on her face.
She too busy trying to find definitive proof that Forrest was a kluxer to see me this week.
ReplyDelete