Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The choreography of spare change

I was walking down the street, wearing a skirt and blouse (no jacket) and carrying a large purse with my raincoat draped over it. Some guy stops me (yes, actually stops me, as though he was going to ask for directions) and asks for spare change.

If I were to give him spare change, I would have to take my raincoat off my purse and shift it to the other arm, open my purse, dig out my wallet, open the change section of my wallet, and decide which change to give him.

I wonder if he seriously thought I was going to do all that?

I wonder if panhandlers ever get money - like at all ever - from people who don't have pockets with change in them?

4 comments:

laura k said...

I had the same thing happen to me this week! I thought the guy was asking for directions, he was pointing at a piece of paper - which I later realized was a strategy.

(A looong time ago, I had my wallet picked in Rome by a similar strategy - you'd think I'd realize it sooner.)

Anyway, I was wearing a backpack, and it would have been a huge big deal to dig for change - plus I had to catch a GO bus. So there was no way. I also wondered, what does he think I'm going to do here?

Anonymous said...

I had a guy once ask me to go into a store and to buy him a sandwich. I was happy to give him some change, but . . .

laura k said...

Some people prefer to buy homeless people food, so they see where their money is going.

impudent strumpet said...

When that guy asked me, I was also carrying a bag of apples. In retrospect, I should have offered him an apple.