At 6:05 p.m., while waiting in line for the 126 bus out of New York’s Port Authority, I was approached by a 20-something male. With his tilted knit cap, rectangular glasses, and minimalist goatee, he looked like a cross between a Beat poet and a tragically hip Project Runway designer. Moments before, he had been begging for money from Hoboken’s homeward-bound commuters while his blasé girlfriend stood idly by.
As the young professionals in line handed him money, I wondered what story was convincing enough for these folks to dig into their pockets and fork over not merely spare change, but hard-earned dollars. Was he taking donations to save the three-toed sloth? Perhaps he was rustling up cash to buy Mrs. Field’s cookies for the homeless who gather in back of the bus terminal. Oh, I do hope that such a fashion-conscious gent as this had not fallen on hard times and resorted to panhandling to survive.
Whatever his plight, he didn’t seem to be expending much effort. Work-weary folks just wanting to get on the bus, pick up their take-out sushi, and chill on the couch seemed willing to fork over a quick buck, probably just to dispense of him. As he made his way toward me, being the compassionate soul that I am, I instinctively started to open my purse and reach for my wallet. With outstretched hand and a charming smile, he simply asked, “Can you help us out?
I didn’t want anything really bad to have happened to him, but I wanted to hear some sob story. “Why do you need the money?” I inquired with sincere concern.
“We’re trying to get back home to Albany,” Mr. Jaunty Beret responded.
That seemed reasonable. But I pressed on.
“What were you doing in New York?”
Hey, these are tough economic times. I’m not the government, before I contribute to a bailout, I want justification. Some acceptable answers could have been:
1. We had to make an emergency visit to my sick great-aunt, but now we can’t hitchhike back because my girlfriend came down with an allergy to vinyl car mats.
2. A gang of marauding, class-trip fifth graders pick pocketed us while we were viewing the Babylonian exhibit at The Met.
3. On the way to a rally protesting the genocide in Darfur, I tripped on a discarded pretzel and my wallet tumbled out of my argyle jacket and into an open manhole.”
Without the slightest bit of shame, the Cool One stated matter-of-factly, “We came to see a show and spent all our money.” This guy had brass ones under his tight, skinny jeans.
“That’s not a good enough reason,” I retorted, and zipped up my purse.
Just then, the line started to move. As I took a few steps forward, he said just loud enough for me to hear, “F you.”
F me?
Yes, F me for having the audacity to inquire how my money was going to be used once it left my hands, and why it was even needed in the first place.
F me for saying “No” to over-indulged children who grow into self-entitled snot noses that feel the world is obligated to fund their every little desire.
And F me for deciding that subsidizing a fun outing for strangers while I toil all day at a job I can barely tolerate – but pays for my recently imposed 47 percent property tax hike – is not a prudent way to spend my money.
F, yeah. Maybe, just maybe, this clueless punk might grow up and get himself a real job where he works 60 hours a week, keeping his nose to the grindstone in the hopes that he doesn’t get laid off in a dismal economy. And while his pregnant wife clips coupons in their modest Cape Cod house, he puts his toddler to bed, reads him a story, then turns out the light from the almost-paid-off lamp that he bought at Costco. And as he heads into his bedroom to lay out the polyester pants and short-sleeved dress shirt he’ll wear to work the next day, he’ll stop to think of me – the middle-aged woman in the bus depot who taught him a valuable lesson and set him on a path of personal and moral responsibility.
Oh, who am I kidding? That kid’s going to figure out a way to hop through life on the broken backs of others. He’ll be duping people out of their money long after I cash my last $57 Social Security check. When I can’t even afford a TV for my room in the state-run nursing home, he’ll still be going to New York to see shows and spending all his money without worrying how he’ll get home because he knows there will always be suckers willing to help him out.
F me.
Eileen Budd is a writer and sometime stand up comedienne – otherwise, she has some boring day job. To comment, e-mail editorial@hudsonreporter.com.