Hoofnagle.org

Why do people always think it's ok to try and scam me? And why do I feel so violated when they try? A woman of undetermined age today as I was crossing the street headed for my office stopped me and I really thought she was going to ask directions or the time. Instead she started this story about being both pregnant and homeless which was crap. I didn't let her finish. I just said no a little more sharply than I should have and walked away.

I'm not interested in denying people's humanity -- which is what I always feel like when this happens. I'm happy to see the guys who always gather in the middle of the block where I sometimes park my car and I never avoid them. I walk through the middle of them and say hello. They usually say something crass and complimentary but friendly and not threatening if you know what I mean. If one of them were to ask me for help in some real way, I like to think I'd do it. I can be taken by the sting scam. If a person wanted to invest some time in making me think they were a human being before askng me for something huge, they'd take me. But I resent the "give me a quarter to stop making you feel guilty " scammer. On some level they've insulted themselves and me by trying that one.

Anyhow, I've known bums with real dignity and homeless people who knew how to ask for things in a way that made me believe and want to give them everything I owned. But they were invariably either asking for nothing or asking for food. Oncea mentally ill fellow actually gave me a ring I should really have appraised to be sure it's not paste because if it's a diamond, I shouldn't have taken it. He wanted to give me something. As I recall I hadn't given him anything, but it would've hurt him to say no. Giving gifts is part of how we know we're human really. Then there was the man in Dupont Circle who politely asked if, when I was done with my burrito, he could have what was leftover. Burrito Brothers makes a huge burrito and Eva and I both handed him ours on the spot at which point he laughed and said no really. Not til you're done.

Anyhow, this woman was neither mentally ill nor asking for something she really needed. And it made me feel like both she and I had shrunken and deformed inside from that exchange. She had the nerve to say, when I was a little terse in refusing her "You don't have to say it like THAT ". I guess I didn't respect her right to be treated like a human being because I felt like she'd compromised mine. So what did I do? I insulted her back. And started my day feeling small.

Posted by karen at June 6, 2002 12:00 AM