God: Charity Cases

LawDog's most recent file highlights why I rarely give money to charity cases. After seeing a man and his kids asking for food:

...I get three sub specials from the deli, and as I scoot under the overpass, I stop and hand the meals to the man and his kids.

I am an adult, so I don't expect thanks for this sort of thing, but I was in no way prepared for the man to look at me, draw himself up to his full height and icily exclaim, "What's this?"

I look significantly at his sign, look back at him and say, "It's food."

He glares at me and snaps, "We don't want food, we want money."

Yup. As you know Amybear and I were long distance for quite a while. For a good period of that time Amy didn't like to make the drive from the DC area to Delaware. If you've driven the DC Beltway for any length of time, you'll understand why. So she took the train up. It cost her more but aggravated her less. It was a fair trade.

This led to me spending time at the Wilmington train station on a semi-regular basis. I got to know the usual characters a bit. I was propositioned by a young man trying to buy a train ticket back to his family in Jersey somewhere. On three different occassions. In three different months. Sadly the first time I fell for it and gave him ten bucks. On that day Amy's train was running late which meant I had to wait. Story of Amtrak's life. By the time her train showed up I realized I had been taken. This guy was working the crowd in the station like a pro, which he probably was. I overheard him use several different stories to different people.

I still try to obey the command to give to the poor. But I also obey the command not to give pearls to swine. Which is why I give food or warm clothes or support facilities that do both, but I don't give money unless I know the person.