I once gave a total stranger $20. And then, I did it again. Different guy, I think.
Their stories, at least in my obviously-failing-the-critical-thinking-test mind, was less relevant than the fact that they had a story. It might seem like a strange and kind of shallow way for me to mentally differentiate the "people that genuinely need help" from the "people that genuinely want to get drunk or do crack and also probably need help", but I needed some kind of barometer, or I would likely just open up my wallet and dump out bills as if I was leaving a trail of crumbs. I'm not puffing out my chest as I type this. This is stupid. I'm aware of how stupid this is.
The first guy was already in mid-conversation with some other passerby when I got out of my car. I didn't get the details, but he did thank the potential donor profusely. I thought he had left but, surprise, he was waiting for me near the trunk of my car. His story, to the best of my recollection, was that he was trapped in the neighborhood, along with his family, and he was asking for either a ride back to his part of town or some money for bus fare. The former seemed like the start of a B-movie featuring hitchhiking sociopaths, so I went with the latter. I did not anticipate giving him $20, but that's all I had in my wallet, and somehow it would be stranger to say something like "let me go make some change first".
The second one flagged me down on the sidewalk on Liberty Ave. I was wearing headphones and had no aural perception of the world around me. And when I say "flagged me down", I am not being figurative. He ran in front of me, stopped, turned on his heel, and waved in my face. Jesus. Must be important.
"I'm just trying to get some food for me and my kids." Kids? Where did you leave them? That's the weird thing about panhandlers (and for reasons unknown, that term makes my liberal soul itch)...they can say anything. No tale is off-limits. And still, that sentence was enough. If you're willing to bring kids, imaginary or otherwise, into the equation, then I will be roped in. Again, I reached in my wallet, and all I had were twenty dollar bills. Once the wallet has been exposed, there's no going back. Again, I gave him $20. I don't even know if he thanked me; I had already pressed play on my iPod.
I realize that these anecdotes are implying that a) I am simply rolling in petty cash, and b) I am maybe undermining your sensibilities when it comes to the "normal" way to handle transients and others in that same phylum. I do not have a disposable income. The $40 handed out on a whim wasn't imperative to keep my head above water for the next week, but it's closer to that than the converse. And I'm not trying to encourage this behavior in anyone. Any self-inflating feelings of putting a tiny band-aid on one's life is heavily contradicted by the immediate notion of "I just got swindled."
So. Anyway.
These two examples may provide some background on why I'm making a more conscientious choice to try to provide some instant gratification through more controlled means. Last year I tagged along for a very, very direct version of a coat drive. "Direct" because the foundation had actually sent a group of children to us, via school bus, and we were each assigned a kid to guide around Macy's and purchase a coat, hat, gloves, etc. It was fantastic. My kid picked the shiniest purple coat I've ever seen, and equally flamboyant accessories, and strutted around the place like she was the queen of the outerwear section...and she was. She OWNED that fucking place. And I got a hug out of it. A long, squeeze-tastic hug, for spending someone else's money on a stranger.
Charity is not selfless. Just thought I should throw that out there. You're doing something for someone that does not have the means to do it themselves, and in doing that thing you feel like you made a difference. You're proud of yourself. Don't beat yourself up for that self-admiration, but don't beat up others for not grasping that same sense of fulfillment. But, either way, donating is as selfish as buying a new TV or having a one-night stand. You're doing this for you...it just happens to be that someone else benefits as well (which, I suppose, is also true in the one-night stand scenario).
I didn't really pick HEARTH out of a hat. It was arranged by co-workers who have assisted them in the past and were rounding up folks at the office for donations and other ways to help. I won't dive into what HEARTH does, except to say that they basically provide low-to-no income temporary housing to women and their kids. And what we were being asked to do was to drum up money to purchase Christmas gifts for these families. A few weeks ago the organizer sent out one last e-mail, saying they were just $35 short of being able to support another family, and impulsively I replied and offered to donate.
I was given the Christmas list of a 6 year old girl that was into animation, animals, and fashion. That's, more or less, what my own daughter is into (if we really, really stretch the definition of "fashion" to include rings and bracelets made out of pipe cleaners). Her wish list included a new LeapPad game, books, a hat and gloves, clothes, a toy box and a doll. Piece of cake.
Or...the opposite of that. Piece of liver and onions? Piece of turnip?
Buying gifts for my daughter is insanely easy. She is as sporadic as any other girl that age, where her preferences rely either on what TV commercial she just saw or what her friends want to get as presents. But I have the distinct advantage being her father, which gives me carte blanche to decide what *I* think she *should* get. I can selectively ignore her impulsive requests (although I rarely don't) and decide that she needs this book or this board game, usually because I had that book or that board game when I was a kid and look how goddamn amazing I turned out to be (this is where I roll my eyes).
But buying gifts for a stranger, even supplied with a list, is akin to being both blind and deaf (apologies to Helen Keller). What kind of doll does she want? WHAT KIND OF DOLL? Target has approximately 954 unique doll selections. And then I pick out the black one and think, simultaneously do you think a black girl would rather have a black doll and why am I presuming that she's black just because she has a unique first name? So, now I feel like a racist bigot. I bought the black doll.
Does she read as well as a typical six-year-old, or better? Or worse? Does her apparent love of animation mean I should look at books that feature cartoon characters? There's one on sharks...but maybe little girls aren't fascinated by sharks. The one on meerkats appears to be below the reading level I designated for her with absolutely no information. Would she rather have a LeapPad game featuring My Little Pony or Phineas and Ferb? Has she seen either of those cartoons? Is she interested in math, or does she prefer science? Is it slightly demeaning to buy a girl a game about cooking? I got the My Little Pony game, which the box explained to me is focused on science, somehow.
It was surprisingly easy to buy clothes. Pink and purple hoodie. Pink pants. Pink and purple gloves and hat. Done. Perfect. Those are the kinds of gifts that parents will just shrug their shoulders and return if the kid isn't interested, anyway. The toy chest was actually pretty neat. It's collapsible canvas, like those storage boxes that Ikea seems to be foisting on all of us, but it's sturdy enough to sit on (can seat up to 125 pounds, according to the packaging). And it's pink, naturally.
I spent almost two hours in that goddamn store, to buy nine items, and apparently to pick up and put down hundreds of other items in my routine of frustrating indecision.
I got to the checkout and everything totaled up to $100.51. I was given $100 to spend. I spared the change. The cashier didn't even have to make up a story about hungry kids.
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