i'm deleting the poll question. it's a waste of time. (if you're burning to know what the poll was about, ya'll can read the comments below, at the end of this very long post -- sorry for the length, btw. it's really hard to write about a moral dilemma in 50 words or less. )
so, here's what happened the other day. j and i, and two of our friends, were leaving our house saturday night to head to the bar around the corner. our friend TK was the first to walk down our front steps, and when she did, she met a woman on the sidewalk. the woman was crying.
i came down to see what the problem was. the woman told us she was trying to get home and asked if we had 50 cents. she was crying and looking afraid. it was well after dark, on a residential street, and she was wandering the streets crying.
"are you okay?" i asked.
"yeah," she said, "i'm just a little shaken up after what happened."
she was young, maybe in her early-to-mid 20s, tall and somewhat overweight, and spoke in a breathy, high-pitched, baby-doll voice.
"what happened?" TK said.
"well," she said, "i was in a car with this man, and he had sex with me, and then he pushed me out."
i asked if we should call the police. i asked if we could call a friend. she said no, that all she wanted was money to get home.
"how much does it cost to get home?" i asked. if she was asking for only 50 cents, she must mean the bus, i thought.
she paused for a second.
"thirteen dollars and 74 cents," she said.
and that's when i knew we were being scammed. because it seems to me, it just feels to me, what with me being a woman and all, and having known quite a few, that if a woman had just been sexually assaulted, she wouldn't necessarily come right out and offer this information (what with it being sensitive, alarming, and still stigmatized), but she probably would be a little more direct in her needs.
she probably would have said something like, "something really bad just happened. i need to get home. it costs 14 bucks. can you help me?"
but she didn't. she asked for 50 cents.
i am a sucker, and i also don't find it inherently wrong to be asked for money on the street, so i gave her two dollars. i also was fighting the voice in my head that said this woman was lying.
i don't want to think any woman with a story of being raped is lying. i want to help her. i want to bring her in and wrap her in a blanket and give her some tea, then i want to track the bastard down and hurt him.
TK asked the woman for her name. after a very, very long pause, the woman said, "Misty?". she said it with a question mark at the end. then TK introduced herself, and our other friend did the same.
by now we were all walking in the direction of the bar, with the woman walking along with us, and j and i were walking a little ahead. i didn't want her to know my name and my address and the fact that i was sucker. the address and the sucker parts were bad enough. and i still wasn't sure she wasn't lying.
so we parted ways with her at the corner and wished her good luck, and then we went inside and sat down, and the first thing TK said was, "that was a total scam."
"really? are you sure??" i said.
they all looked at me for the sweet, naive thing that i am.
"i can't believe you gave her money," j said.
"anyone walking around at 10:30 at night asking for 50 cents probably needs it," i said back.
we left the bar two or three hours later.
and there, across the street, was the same woman, standing under an awning, chatting away on a cell phone.
i think it's perfectly fine to ask strangers for money. there are programs for homeless people, but they are stretched thin and don't always work, and there are so many cracks for people to fall through. so i don't mind. i live a very comfortable life. giving two bucks to the lady who lives outside the coffee shop is the very, very, very least thing i can do, if it means she gets to eat that day. i have never known what it means to survive solely on the mercy of strangers.
but, to lie about why you're asking for the money -- and to lie about something that no woman should lie about, because it calls all the legitimate claims into question -- just seems unnecessary. once, a guy j knows was walking down the street when a homeless man approached him. the man said to j's friend, "hey, buddy, i'll be honest. i really want a beer. can you spare a couple of bucks?" and j's friend handed over the money. everyone should be able to enjoy a good beer every now and then, he figured.
a couple of nights after our encounter with the woman, j and i were running to the store down the street. it was early evening, and the sun was beginning to wane. and we saw the woman again.
i really, really wanted to talk to her. i was waiting outside the store for j to come out, because i had the dog with me. i saw her coming from down the block. she looked up and seemed to pause, and i thought for a second that she recognized me. but she wasn't looking at me, she was looking at something on her hand. and i thought, oh great, the money i gave her went to a manicure.
she looked away and began walking towards me, and as she passed me, she looked up and we locked eyes.
"it was a lightening bug!" she said in a joyous, though slightly muffled voice.
"what?" i said.
"i said it was a lightening bug!" she said. no manicure, just a lightening bug that had landed on her hand.
she smiled like a child and kept walking down the street.
7 comments:
But I was all ready to offer my completely biased opinion!!
Which is, incidentally, that I don't expect a man to open a door for me, but secretly, on some level, I do like it when he does.
Is that wrong? I don't know.
i thought you were taking a vacation from blogland!
i don't think it's wrong for anyone to enjoy courteous behavior from anybody else. so no, i don't think it's wrong.
(okay, i'll say what i think, too, though in my original, now-deleted post, i said i wasn't gonna.)
i think it's wrong to expect men to open doors simply because they are dudes and i am not.
i've tried to open doors for men many, many times who've adamantly refused and insisted that i go first. this is silly. it means chivalry is a one-way street.
so yeah -- let the man open the door for you, then return the favor next time. let the love go 'round.
I don't see the moral dilemma. Not on your part at least. You saw someone in need and you met that need with decency and compassion and kindness. Had you done otherwise I could see the dilemma. Most of us think as you acted but act with indifference. Sometimes its born of social isolation or just getting burned by something fiercer than a lightening bug one time too many. Even then they're poor excuses. You at least live up to the Anne Frank standard:
"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death."
I ramble. I also open doors, stand at tables, and rise when people enter the room. Chivalry? Maybe. I prefer to see it as one of those mythic American character traits (back when we believed we were an egalitarian and democratic society). Equality and respect...what were we thinking? Regardless, it's what I've become.
As to "Sicko", I've no idea when/if it will play at the local movieopolis. It'll probably be a rental for me.
thanks for your words, SM. i open doors, too (and am often prone to ramble) -- yay for being in good company.
xo
c
Well, I wouldn't have given her a dime. I'm from the city. Anybody asking for an exact amount like that is scamming, plain and simple. There's a guy who says he needs money for liquor. I give him a buck. There's a guy at the same corner by Goucher all the time. I wrote about him here.
It's not wrong to be good hearted. But you do have to watch. You can't single-handedly be responsible for everyone's welfare. I work hard for the little money I make. My dollar won't make much difference because it's temporary.
So the real moral dilemma is whether you help this woman more by giving her money or by not. Because cell phones aren't necessities, and maybe she'll get a hint and find another line of non-work.
i hear your point, dogfaceboy.
the exact amount didn't bug me -- maybe she could have known how much a taxi fare cost from my neighborhood to hers. it was that she asked for so little (only 50 cents) in comparison to what she needed to get home, and didn't tell me the actual amount until i asked -- that's what made me think something was fishy. if it had truly been a crisis, i don't think she would have been so cagey about it.
anyway -- i'm getting bogged down by details. the woman probably needed the money, i gave her the money, and now i'm over feeling stung by what was probably dishonesty. i don't know the woman's story. hell -- migrant farmworkers have cell phones these days, so even a cell phone isn't an accurate gauge of income.
when i lived in boston and in dc, there was a definite line between people who gave money to people on the street, and people who didn't. that line crosses genders and political parties. i don't know what causes it -- what do you think?
hey, DFB, that was lovely, by the way. i just read the link you posted in your last comment. i wonder why i never noticed him.
Post a Comment