Can I have that back?

Many years ago, when I was a wide-eyed, bushy-tailed freshman I would walk with my friend Gina to the Walgreens where here roommate Annie worked. We would wait for her until she got off of work and then walk her back to the dorms. One night as we waited a homeless man was standing by us asking passersby for money for the bus to Rockford. It wasn’t long before he turned to us to ask for help on his journey to a better future. Gina and I were caught up in his speech of giving up the drink and having a job set up in Rockford. Needless to say we felt honored to assist him; so we each gave him five dollars and wished him good luck in Rockford. We truly thought that was the last we would see of this man starting his second chance on life.

That weekend as our entire floor set out for a party, Gina and I spotted that same man, smelling of booze, hocking the same empty promises of heading to Rockford and starting a new job. I looked at Gina and in that moment we lost our high school innocence and became jaded college students.

One might ask why am I taking this stroll down memory lane? Well tonight I had another run in with a man lamenting his hard knock life. I am going to set the scene before giving a verbatim account of what transpired. I walk out of a coffee shop, where I was studying, to make a phone call and a homeless man came up to me and asked:

“Hey man can I have some money, I need to buy milk for my kid.”

This is indeed a particularly sad situation. I must admit at first I was going to respond with my usual M.O. “I don’t have any money.” Instead I say, as I hold the ringing phone to my ear:

“Sure, I think I have a dollar.”

I reach into my wallet and I see I have a five so I decide, fine I will give him the five. I pull out the five and hand it to him only to realize seconds later that there had been a twenty inside the folded five. TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!!! I don’t care if you think I am a bastard for not wanting to give the man $25 for his son’s milk, that is not spare change. I will say that you can call me a bastard for what I said after realizing what I had done:

“Can I have that back?”

I know, I ‘m a dick. I wasn’t thinking at the time. My phone was ringing during the entire time of this transaction and he was coming at me with fast questions; I was disoriented. The man closed his hand around the money so I was pretty sure I wasn’t gonna be getting that Jackson back. Admitting defeat, I turn away from the guy because the voicemail has finally come on for me to leave a message. Just as I am about to start talking, the man comes back and asks”

“Are you mad at me?”

Seriously?!?! I don’t even know how to interpret this. I mean I am not mad at him but I just freaking handed him 25% of $100. Isn’t there some kind of pandering code? Don’t they have to give it back if you ask?

And this is why (among other things that will be brought up later in this blog) that I am going to hell.