Over the years I've had to learn to become far less polite in South Florida.
Back in 1989 I was walking into a record store (look it up) and some guy gave me the "need a few bucks for gas so I can get home" song and dance. Having been "almost out of gas" a few times in my life I gave the guy a couple bucks. Later I felt like an idiot when I saw him walking into the coffee shop. I guess it could have been worse and I could have paid for his drugs rather than getting scammed for a free coffee.
Fool me once.
Since then I've become pretty good for just forcefully saying "No!" even before they can complete their BS sentence. More than once this has been followed up with "You need to keep walking" especially if I'm with my wife. Sometimes they try and get really, really polite which makes me even less tolerant.
I simply refuse to pay for somebodies beer, cigarettes or drug money. If I'm feeling charitable and you look more like an old homeless vet than a drugged out loser who should be working for a living, I've been known to make a second pass through the drive thru and buy a sack of burgers and fries. There have also been a few times I've been on the way home from dinner and seen the "Will work for food" guy and asked him if he wanted my "to go" bag.
Years ago I saw a guy standing in the rain at night and I just handed it to him. Half a rack of BBQ ribs and fries. He promptly walked to a bus stop bench and ate it. Really hated to let that BBQ go, but he looked like he needed it more than I did.
Kind of sucks, I worry that 8-10% of the people asking are seriously in need of help and aren't actually drug addicts or trying to scam beer and cigarette money. But just like in everything else, the bottom feeders screw it up for everyone else.
One thing I've noticed, even with homeless people, even with ones that seem to have a serious disconnect with the real world...they all seem to understand when a person is seriously preparing to pound the shit out of them because they are just getting too damn close.
I've actually had to switch gas stations and now pay about .05 cents more per gallon so I don't have to have a weekly confrontation with idiots walking up to me asking for money.
It's hard to be a ACLU hating, philosophically Libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, scientifically grounded, agnostic, porn admiring gun owner who believes in self determination.
Chuck, we miss ya man.
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