Can you spare some change?

Given my well-documented "weirdo magnet", I'm never surprised when random folks on the street pick me out as an "easy mark" and hit me up for a monetary "donation". [Okay, I'm through with " "s.] I now live on a street with a good bit of random foot traffic and I've been hit up a couple of times while messing around out in front of the house. A couple of weeks ago, though, I had a new experience.

I was sitting in my porch swing, reading the newspaper, when this guy came walking by. I could almost see him debating my worth as a target. He decided to give it a shot. He walked up to the porch and started his pitch:

You don't remember me, do you? I'm John Doe. Yeah, man, I've been having a rough time. First off, I'M NOT A CRIMINAL (this was repeated many times). Man, my mom just passed away and I've been out walking -- to relieve the stress. I think I've probably walked 42 miles today and I just wondered if you could do me a favor? I've been walking all day and I'm about to starve. Could you do a man a favor and let me have a little money to get a burger at Hardee's?

He didn't even pause for an answer. Instead he essentially repeated his whole spiel, except that this time he decided to ask for enough to get a fish plate. I don't know where his fish plate was going to come from, but he needed $10 for that.

Now I debate the wisdom of giving money to panhandlers, but I figured he'd given me a good performance and that should be worth something. Plus, I hate to admit it, but part of me worries about eventual retaliation if one turns down opportunities for donations. Anyway, I figured I'd give him something -- but NOT $10; his story wasn't that good. Problem is, I never carry much cash on me. I stuck my head in the door and checked my wallet and all I had was a single dollar bill. I'd figured on giving him something more than that, so I grabbed a handful of change from my change jar. All-in-all, it was probably about $3. When I started to give it to him, though, he protested. "Surely you can do better than that. C'mon man, how about $10?" I was amazed! I'd never encountered a panhandler who'd argue about how much you were giving him and I told Mr. John Doe that I thought his actions were a tad cheeky. He immediately retreated and said he didn't mean to be ungrateful. It must just be that he was weak from hunger, he said. In the end, he decided that he would take my money.

I had put that all out of my mind until one day last week when I saw him walking down the street again. As before, he stopped in front of my house and started with, "You don't remember me, do you?" I told him that I did, in fact, remember him (though it soon became obvious he didn't remember me), but he'd already rushed past that point. This time he told me that he was just all stressed out because he'd been stationed over in Baghdad. He'd just now gotten back and he was messed up. I told him that he'd already hit me up last week with a different story. "No," he protested, "I swear to God that wasn't me." I told him it most certainly was him and that he'd had a recently deceased mother the last time I'd talked to him.

That must have rung a bell because he seemed to give up after that. He started to walk away and I heard him mutter, "Man, I've been drawing bad all day." I don't know, but I took that to mean he'd been picking bad marks that day.

I figured since I paid for the story, I should be able to recycle it myself.