The Eight Dollar Request
A few weeks ago some friends and I were walking around the U District in Seattle when we were approached by a homeless man asking for money. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But as we all reached for our coin purses in anticipation of "can you spare a quarter?" the man asked us if we could spare eight dollars for dinner. EIGHT DOLLARS! I don't spend eight dollars on dinner for myself. I realize that inflation affects us all, but come on! I have to work an entire hour to even make eight dollars and even then, some of that goes to taxes. Needless to say his request was denied. Had he not been so greedy, he probably would have gotten at least a couple of dollars out of us, but we were afraid that if we gave him a dollar he would look at us and say "where's the rest of my money?!?" And we were not up for a fight with a homeless man that day. We seldom are.
A few weeks ago some friends and I were walking around the U District in Seattle when we were approached by a homeless man asking for money. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But as we all reached for our coin purses in anticipation of "can you spare a quarter?" the man asked us if we could spare eight dollars for dinner. EIGHT DOLLARS! I don't spend eight dollars on dinner for myself. I realize that inflation affects us all, but come on! I have to work an entire hour to even make eight dollars and even then, some of that goes to taxes. Needless to say his request was denied. Had he not been so greedy, he probably would have gotten at least a couple of dollars out of us, but we were afraid that if we gave him a dollar he would look at us and say "where's the rest of my money?!?" And we were not up for a fight with a homeless man that day. We seldom are.
posted by Heather at 10:47 PM
1 Comments:
Eight dollars IS a lot. How interesting that he selected that amount. Maybe he should have given a range, such as "between one and eight dollars."
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