New Year's Day found me doing an un-New Year's Day tradition: shopping at Walmart. Being a superstitious soul, I've always spent the first day of the new year at home minding my business, away from places where spending would be the order of the day. You see, I grew up believing that splurging on the first day of the year might turn out to be a year-round exercise in spending.
This time something made me deviate from my norm. Change is always good, I convinced myself. Besides, I was curious to see what the public mood was like on Day One of 2012. Based on where I live, my neighbors weren't actually ecstatic, not jumping up and down that the New Year had arrived, so I had to leave my comfort zone to take a pulse on the masses.
At the train station while waiting for the ride that would take me closer to Walmart, a young man with the biggest ear phones I had ever seen approached me to ask if I had fifty cents. I had more than that amount in my bag, but instead of handing him money, I asked if he would take a bus pass. His eyes hesitated for a nano second, but accepted the offer. Much to my utter disappointment, he didn't even thank me!
He promptly went to other people waiting for their rides or working the ticket machine and asked them the same question. When my train arrived, the young man hopped on it and got off at my stop. He continued his modus operandi of asking fifty cents from every man and woman he encountered.
I headed to Walmart and took my time picking up merchandise. Because I'm a cyber shopper by choice, every time I go to a store I feel the need to take my time and savor the experience. Instead of checking out with a live counter clerk, I went to the self-checkout lane, scanned and bagged the items myself.
At the train station, I immediately recognized the young man who asked me for money. I figured that for the two hours I spent at the store, he must have already collected quite a sum of money from his panhandling effort.
I couldn't help but feel dismayed that someone like him, who's young and apparently healthy, would have the nerve to ask for strangers' money. At Walmart there was an employee in a wheelchair stocking shelves working hard for a living. There should be a law against able-bodied citizens flaunting their sloth and harassing others for spare change!
Citizens like that young man contribute to the degenerating culture of America. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I certainly hope that panhandling will soon be considered a petty crime. It's a menace to society and only contributes to the depressing scenery of our times.
This time something made me deviate from my norm. Change is always good, I convinced myself. Besides, I was curious to see what the public mood was like on Day One of 2012. Based on where I live, my neighbors weren't actually ecstatic, not jumping up and down that the New Year had arrived, so I had to leave my comfort zone to take a pulse on the masses.
At the train station while waiting for the ride that would take me closer to Walmart, a young man with the biggest ear phones I had ever seen approached me to ask if I had fifty cents. I had more than that amount in my bag, but instead of handing him money, I asked if he would take a bus pass. His eyes hesitated for a nano second, but accepted the offer. Much to my utter disappointment, he didn't even thank me!
He promptly went to other people waiting for their rides or working the ticket machine and asked them the same question. When my train arrived, the young man hopped on it and got off at my stop. He continued his modus operandi of asking fifty cents from every man and woman he encountered.
I headed to Walmart and took my time picking up merchandise. Because I'm a cyber shopper by choice, every time I go to a store I feel the need to take my time and savor the experience. Instead of checking out with a live counter clerk, I went to the self-checkout lane, scanned and bagged the items myself.
At the train station, I immediately recognized the young man who asked me for money. I figured that for the two hours I spent at the store, he must have already collected quite a sum of money from his panhandling effort.
I couldn't help but feel dismayed that someone like him, who's young and apparently healthy, would have the nerve to ask for strangers' money. At Walmart there was an employee in a wheelchair stocking shelves working hard for a living. There should be a law against able-bodied citizens flaunting their sloth and harassing others for spare change!
Citizens like that young man contribute to the degenerating culture of America. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I certainly hope that panhandling will soon be considered a petty crime. It's a menace to society and only contributes to the depressing scenery of our times.
