Rings|Clix|G-book|Profile|Recommend

Listening to: From the Choirgirl Hotel. Not for long, though... it's not really matching my mood quite like I was expecting it too.

Currently Reading: Just barely started Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music. Kind of saving it for the train, as well as a stack of others (both fiction and non). Also, I recently read Laurie Notaro's I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies): True Tales of a Loudmouth Girl (again) in like two days, and peed myself laughing. Highly recommended. I also devoured The Broke Diaries by Angela Nissel in, like, a mere few days. Laughed until I peed. Also highly recommended.

Wishing: income. Lots of it. Other than that, life's pretty good.

I couldn't be more The current mood of ronkc@diaryland.com at www.imood.com right now.

Buy "Civilised Conversation..." Merchandise! Please? All the cool kids are doing it....

Please help me pay for college by purchasing items from Amazon.com through this link!!

Do you love me?

30 November 2001 | 12:47 AM

You Got A Dollar?

Okay.

I was writing this one right before my damned computer crashed, so we'll try this again.

I was babbling about how I had gone to the ATM today, and as I was walking back to the Residential Life and Housing Office of Hell, (so I could pay for housing for Winter Break), I was acosted by a man who was asking for money. It wasn't like, "You got a quarter?" It was like, "Howyadoin, youngster? You see, the reason I call you youngster is that you could be walking down any street and no one would know how old you are, or that you're a millionaire... I can tell you're just like that, and that's a really big deal, and I love you man. Blah blah." So I'm like, "Okay, I love you, too." Awkward smile. So then he goes onto tell me about he was driving on I-5, and that he had to get to Olympia, but his car broke down, and how he needed eight dollars to take the bus to Olympia. He has change, though, so change does him no good. So I offer him a dollar. Whatever, right? No. He starts talking about, hey, a dollar isn't going to help me that much either, give me ten dollars. Which, I realise now, doesn't fit with his earlier story about needing only eight dollars. And now that I'm thinking about it, if he was on I-5, and now needs bus money, why is he not near I-5 or the bus station, but on Capitol Hill? Dammit, Chris, you really need to think on your toes more often. So I explain to him that I'm a college student, and I can't really afford to be doing this anyway. He said that he understands and appreciates that, but he really needs the ten. So I'm like, "I'm sorry, this is all I've got." He accepted it, but you could tell he was not pleased. I told him to have a nice day, and I was on my way.

So I'm walking back to campus. After hitting SURLHO, (or "Surly Ho," as we like to call it), I was going to go to Theology class. Seeing as how I was debating today with my team in front of the class on the subject of forgiveness, I started to think of this encounter in those terms, in the kind of obsessive-compulsive way that I tend to do.

Did I do the right thing? Should I have given him more? Should I have not given him anything at all? What would Jesus do? Probably spit on some dirt and then slather the muck in his eyes... That wouldn't have been a good idea...

And then I think, you know, Chris, there's only so much you can do. You do what you can. Vagrants aren't a new thing for you. There will be more to come, as well. Yeah, giving him a dollar was probably a little much, and if he uses the money to buy drugs, as my Grandmother would like to think all Spangers do, so what? Is it really that terrible? If it happens, it happens. It will have happened for quite a while, too. It's probably not a new notion. And I can go to bed tonight on my rock-hard matress, all cold and lonely, knowing that I did not impede a potentially truly needy man from a dollar, a dollar which I could surely do without. Right? Besides, I've given friends dollars without much contemplation either. Can I borrow a dollar for a soda? Sure, whatever... Can I bum a cigarette off of you? Sure, whatever. Can I have money for [worst-case-scenario: drugs, best-case-scenario: transportation]? Kind of makes me a dick to say "no," right? Right?

So, yes.

That's how I justified giving a man a dollar.

I did square away my Winter housing, though, which was due tomorrow.

And I got an "A" on my debate, which is fantastic.

And I got a marvelous backrub from a guy with a French last name.

I'm exhausted now, though, and I have therapy tomorrow. I should lay down and think about that which I'd like to discuss.

Yawn...

��������������������������������������������������

Oh, Whoops. - 10:34 PM , 02 September 2005

In Like Hula-Hoops. - 11:28 PM , 12 April 2005

A - Z - 4:37 AM , 26 March 2005

w00t - 12:15 AM , 25 March 2005

Just Let Her Go. - 12:12 AM , 20 March 2005

��������������������������������������������������


�2001 Design by CC | Words by ronkc