Today I went to my local coffee shop before work to get some caffeine, and was stopped on the way in by one of the local homeless guys. I’ve seen him before, and he has asked me for some spare change before too, but today, he apparently decided to step up his game plan.
He started by catching me between the sidewalk and the door, and immediately started telling me his story of woe and why he needed some money. It went something along the lines of this.
He said he was traveling all across America to panhandle, trying to make $50. He was going from state to state panhandling. A traveling panhandler, this man was. He used the word “panhandle” more times than I had ever heard in my life. He said needed the $50 so he could open a bank account and get a lock box. He then reached into his pants pocket and produced an empty wallet, save for a California I.D. card… he didn’t say anything about it, but rather, he just kept fiddling with it between his fingers. When I looked down at it, it most definitely was not his I.D. card, but actually that of a man of a completely different ethnicity, and what looked like about 20 years age difference.
Why he pulled the card out I will never know… but he continued his story without taking a breath or letting me say a word.
He said he wasn’t able to get a lock-box yet because the poh-leece have his name on file, and he needed a tape worm removed.
Yes. You read that right. It made about as much sense to me as I bet it does to you. But I digress…
He reiterated the fact that he had family all across the United States and needed to go see them and was trying to make $50 today for traveling money and a lock box. He then finally got to the point and asked if I had anything I could spare. I simply told him I would see what I had after I went and got my coffee.
While getting my coffee, I was trying to digest everything he had told me, and I was even more dumbfounded than before, but I couldn’t help but just start laughing at nothing.
When I came out, I gave him $2 cash and told him to have a good one. He then proceeded on to his next client.
What he is planning on storing in that lock-box, and how he plans on getting that tape-worm removed, I hope to never find out, but one thing’s for sure… that was an amazing two dollars.