You ever know when you're getting conned and for some reason you just can't stop the train of it for the inertia? This happened to me yesterday. Some guy comes up to me in the grocery store parking lot and starts talking to me, the hello, can you help me sort of thing. This one was interesting because he said he was a videographer for a local TV station and that the van he had ran out of gas with a million dollars worth of television equipment in it. He knew some names of some of the professors at the University here (I was in broadcast and film eons ago before I switched majors) so I offered to fill his tank up but he said that he had to have 60.00. I offered 40 and a ride to a parking lot a couple of miles down the road but he begged for 60. He said that he was only going to borrow the money and was desperate. I thought about it for a moment, withdrew 60 bucks from my account and gave it to him, I try to do unto others as I would like people to do unto me if indeed I was in his position and had a real emergency. He thanked me as he got out of my van. Curious, I doubled back just to see where he was going...some seedy cigarette store across the street.
Yeah, I was had. Big time. I was scared to death to tell Mrs. Macabre about it but strangely enough, I was told that I did the right thing. I'm very disappointed in the person for not telling me the truth, (the story was in infinite detail too, it was incredible. The first tip off when someone wants money is a complex scenario that has an element of immediacy or emergency to it and promises of immediate repayment), just be up front with me.
That was just to blow off steam, I'm over it now. Then two kids came by the house selling stuff for their school...a 12.00 scented candle in a variety of migraine inducing scents and a 25.00 Boston butt roast. I could have done without the candle in 'Alabama Kudzu' scent (how the &%$# did they come up with that scent?!) but I'm all over a Boston butt roast for barbecue. If kids come by the house, I always buy something from them, it's just the thing you do. I bought 14.00 worth of sugar cookie dough a couple of weeks back and it is still staring me in the face.
Oh well, it's only money.
6 comments:
I'll tell you what..I sure have had some good laughs with your writing...the one about the "trunk or treat" and this one have me howling....keep 'em coming!
you poor thing. literally. :(
but if you do the right thing, then you live better i think. sometimes poorer, but definitely better.
You're a lot nicer then me. I would have just told the guy sorry and got in my car and drove away, exactly because of stories like yours.
The kids at the door is a different story, I'm a sucker for cookie dough to help my neighborhood kids out. I the sure thing on my little dead end street and they all know it.
Hey Joe can I borrow $60 I'm all out of Turducken and I need one quick, I'll gladly pay you on the second Tuesday of next week, I promise ;)
Ah, you have a big hear too!! Sorry about that! :D I am a bit of a sucker too...but I am getting better.
That said....I buy stuff from all my friends and coworkers kids, Husband an I don't have any, so we figure it is the right thing to help other people's kids.
I knew I liked you for a reason :D
Thanks for sharing with us, that is a good story that has got me thinking. I always appreciate that.
Cheers!
I always buy from the neighborhood kids, too. I remember how much I hated going around doing fundraisers as a kid, but I appreciate those who do that and don't just send the brochure to work with mom or pop and have them do all the work.
As for the others, most of the time I brush them off. I watched a couple once ask for money to go across the street to Wendy's for breakfast and these two softhearted ladies gave them some money. So I sat in my car until they got up and started down the sidewalk--to the ABC store. Soon they came out with a brown bag and went around to the back of the shopping center to drink. That pretty much cured me of handouts.
One of the lawyers I had to deal with in a former job had a small office near the interstate. He'd go get these guys with the cardboard signs, offer them $10.00 to clean up the area outside his building. They always refused, because they could make more on a daily basis standing and begging.
So I got to where I just carried a can of soup with a pop-off lid, plastic spoon set, and a bottle of water in my car. If they came up begging, I just handed them the bagged lunch. That way, if they really needed the food, they had it. And if not, I didn't contribute to the scam.
Where I live now I rarely see guys like that, so I quit carrying the bagged lunches around.
just checking in on you! hope you're doing well and that you had a great thanksgiving!
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