A Weird Panhandle
The other day, I was panhandled, and it was the strangest panhandle I have ever experienced.
Normally, people will ask for cigarettes, but i am reluctant to give any out. I keep an empty pack in my shirt pocket, which I produce to prove that I am smoking my last cigarette – even though I have a full pack stashed somewhere else.
People will ask me for change, or a few bucks. They say they need it for food, or to get a bus somewhere, or for their kids or whatever. I don’t carry cash anymore simply because when I tell people that I have no cash on me, I know I’m telling the truth.
I’ve even been sitting at the bar, enjoying myself, and had perfect strangers come up and ask me for a drink. My favorite rejoinder is “Yeah, you can have a drink – if you give me that crack you’re smoking”. Of course they go away.
I even had a guy offer to give me a tattoo one time for five bucks. It certainly was odd to be offered a tattoo, but it was just a scheme to get some cash off of me.
But the other day, this white kid walked up to me. He was in his early twenties, medium build, with dark tousled hair, a mustache, and was wearing jeans and a jacket you would expect an African-American to wear. I don’t remember what brand it was.
I was waiting for the train, and minding my own business, listening to Stephanie Miller on my Walkman. I saw him walk up to a ticket machine, smoking a cigarette and carrying a paper cup from Tim Horton’s. He carried a lunch bag, and got his ticket to get on the train. On first blush, he was not in need of anything as he apparently had all the basic necessities of life,
He wandered about, and meandered up to my side. He appeared to me to be someone looking for conversation, the type of people I try to avoid. You know the type – people who ramble on for no reason, and they want to talk to you even though you absolutely have no desire to talk with them. People who talk because if their mouth stops working, their brain starts working, and that’s very painful, indeed. The people who love to hear the sound of their voice and think everyone else is just as enthusiastic to hear its melodious intonations, even though there isn’t a person for miles who has the faintest inkling to hear his inharmonious clatter.
He said something, and I pretended not to hear him, adjusting my ear buds as if there was a loose wire in them. He tapped my arm, and said something again, and I looked at him, annoyed. Turning the volume down on my Walkman, I asked if I could help him.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I was wondering if you had a piece of gum.”
Now, you have to understand that I wasn’t chewing gum at the time. You also have to understand that within a thirty-second walk is a Rite-Aid, a CVS, and two different newsstands. A pack of gum goes for a quarter, the last time I checked for a price.
Needless to say, I was less than kind when I advised him that I currently did not have any gum in my possession, but there were several establishments that were extremely close where he could purchase his own pack of gum.
He seemed like he was going to say something or ask again, but as he looked at me, I saw a hint of fear in his eyes. He turned and walked away.
It was a very atypical panhandle.
