I AM ILL. I missed a few days of work this week with a sinus infection which I am still battling today; as it is on the downhill slope somewhat, I went ahead and worked today anyway.
But this entry isn't about being sick; it's about something that happened when I first started feeling bad.
I left work halfway through my shift on Wednesday, realizing I was rapidly getting worse, and stopped at the CVS drugstore near my apartment. It was a little after 4:00 a.m. but thankfully this one is open 24 hours. All I needed were a couple essentials -- the Tylenol version of NyQuil, and Gatorade. It should have been a brief, uneventful trip, and I really wanted to just go home and sleep.
"Excuse me, sir?"
I have come to dread hearing those words when out in public. It always comes from the same kind of person, and it always means the same thing: "give me money."
I just ignored him.
"Excuse me sir?"
Persistent, this one. I was in an extraordinarily foul mood, even by my standards.
"WHAT."
Here we go. What's the sob story this time? Is it bus fare or gas money?
"Well we're just trying to get back to Emory, and um we (mumble mumble mumble)..."
I had gone back to my shopping, ignoring him.
"So can you help us out?"
"What do you want? Do you need directions?"
"No, we just need to get a gas can because we're out--"
I cut him off. "I can't help you."
I went up to the register to pay for my stuff... and he followed me. He kept begging the whole time while I waited for the cashier to come up to the register. (Where the hell WAS he??) "Can you just please give me a little --"
I cut him off again. "I don't have any cash."
I was lying. I had $17 in my pocket.
Why did I do it?
I was sick, miserable, tired, drained and desperate to go home.
I hate being bothered by strangers.
But I also hate giving money to beggars.
Never before I moved to Atlanta had I been accosted with such frequency by people who walked up to me asking for money. I recalled my first year living here, when I rented a house in East Atlanta, not knowing at the time that was really not a good part of town to live in, and it got to the point I would drive five to ten miles out of my way to get groceries or gas, because in my part of town I had a week where I literally could not walk across a parking lot or pull in to a gas station without someone asking me for money.
I started to feel a tinge of guilt for being so rude to that guy. But then, I considered: he was being rude to ME. I don't wear a sign that says "ASK ME ABOUT SPARE CHANGE". He tried to talk to me and I ignored him. I repeatedly told him I wasn't going to help. But he persisted.
Then, I further justified it in my head: this is not a smart person. If, as he claimed, he was out of gas or whatever, he should have thought about that before he drove to this part of town: "Hey, I'm low on gas and I'm so broke I can't put any gas in my car. Maybe I shouldn't drive, or I should ask a friend or relative to help because obviously my money management skills are lacking." By giving him (and all the other panhandlers in this town) money, I would be rewarding his stupidity.
Then I realized the truth: I'm just a selfish a**hole.
I still don't know what I would do differently if I could go back.
STORIES I WORKED ON TODAY
- After a slow start, an anti-gun rally eventually got fired up in Washington.
- Norovirus: it's not just for cruise ships any more.
- How Hills and Barry overcame their rivalry to become kinda sorta pals.
- Anonymous says it's declaring war against the U.S. I, for one, welcome our new Anonymous overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV news journalist, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground computer caves.
- A Catholic hospital is defending a wrongful death lawsuit by maintaining that fetuses are not living persons. Quick, notify the Vatican!
- Oklahoma is not known for wild police chases, but this one is pretty good.
READ THIS
Turns out my dog Emmy isn't a wolf because she can digest bread.
Slate's Jennifer Bleyer raises an interesting point: why is America's child pornography policy 100 percent punitive and zero percent preventative?
