Some readers possibly don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realize that part of my alleged sense of humor comes from holding doors open for people, and as I do the honors, asking them for a quarter for my efforts.<\/p>\n
PLEASE realize this is a joke. I ask for the 25-cent tip mainly to test their reaction and discover how quickly they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re able to think on their feet.<\/p>\n
One such experiment (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written about this before) happened a few years ago as I held the door for a man and his family as they entered the Santa Fe Souper Salad.<\/p>\n
As the man, the last one to enter, walked past me, I put my hand out and spouted my usual \u00e2\u20ac\u015325 cents, please.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Well, that must have gotten his pugilistic juices flowing, as he challenged me with something like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I ought to punch you for doing that!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That would have been quite a sight: two chinless old men duking it out and missing half the time.<\/p>\n
Well, immediately, I explained it was a joke and that I do that many times, especially to strangers, with mixed results. My explanation cooled him a bit, yet while inside the restaurant, he mumbled something and moved his family to a table far from us.<\/p>\n
Such ingratitude!<\/p>\n
I failed to mention that on occasion I offered group rates, say, 50 cents for a family of five. Bit that venture is reserved for people I know, people unlikely to take umbrage at my proposition, even a deal that provides a discount.<\/p>\n
The question becomes: How much money could I earn during store and restaurant business hours if I stood as the de facto doorman and requested a quarter each time?<\/p>\n
Places like Charlie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in downtown Las Vegas have a second door that leads to the restaurant proper, to prevent a cold (or hot) blast of air from entering. And that presents a second opportunity to plead for funds. But too often, a customer, now ahead of me, will say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll hold the door for you, so we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re even.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Truth be told, in my years of playing that game, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve earned exactly 25 cents.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what happened:<\/p>\n
As I greeted a woman, a stranger, she placed a quarter in my hand even before I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d finished my spiel. That surprised me, as either she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d witnessed my game before, or just happened to have a spare quarter in her hand. For what? To buy a newspaper? That would have required a second quarter, or if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the New Mexican, three more quarters.<\/p>\n
Although I doubt I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to finance my retirement cottage or take too many trans-global flights on the money I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve received, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still fun to note the reactions.<\/p>\n
What heightens the fun is discovering whether and to what extent people can be quick with the repartee. Even though I taught beginning speech classes for 32 years, I myself have never been very good at furnishing a snappy answer when someone sticks his or hand out and says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Twenty-five cents, please.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Predictably, at the top of the list of people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s responses is the chuckle, no words uttered but maybe a smile or a glare. Some react with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Put it on my tab.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I also get, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Next time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yeah, right,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I gave at the office,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sorry, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m broke\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You give me a quarter.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The person who impressed me the most was the lady who slipped a quarter into my hand and refused to take it back.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was joking. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t owe me anything,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I tried to respond. But she was steadfast, refusing politely to take it back, and uttering something to the effect that I probably needed it more than she did. But I still wonder why the quarter she gave me came from her hand and was not tucked away in her purse.<\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think my fame (notoriety?) is equal to that of a resident many of us knew only as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Quarter Lady,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a middle-aged woman who earned her nickname by asking passersby for a quarter, which she often received.<\/p>\n
She held court near the entrance to a Safeway store on Mills and Hot Springs Boulevard. The store was on the site of the current Big R store. That was back in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc80s, when a quarter amounted to something.<\/p>\n
One day, as I sent my then-7-year-old son Benjie to enrich the lady\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s take by 25 cents, she put her hand out \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not to accept the coin but to refuse it. She explained that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d collected enough for the day, as she sat on the sidewalk and dug into a small pizza, bought from Gustavo, who ran Upper Crust Pizza in Mills Plaza.<\/p>\n
Benjie was never shy about meeting people and once asked the woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name, which she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reveal. Yet, she (or perhaps we) became fixtures at the lady\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s station on Mills Plaza, and we believe she even factored in our contribution to help her plan her next day\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget.<\/p>\n
Occasionally, even when we were not on a shopping trip, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d spot her from a distance and drive toward her to chip in.<\/p>\n
Without trying to appear \u00e2\u20ac\u0153uppity\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or snobbish, I hope people who have been asked for a tip when I hold the door open don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t construe my presence there as that of a homeless, under-fed person who spends hours each day fantasizing about opulence while asking for spare change.<\/p>\n
I also wonder about the Quarter Lady. Did she move away, pass away?<\/p>\n
Our dealings with the lady go back some 30 years. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recall exactly how her (unknown) name came up, but I do remember having heard that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d moved into a boarding home where she received three squares a day.<\/p>\n
Someone might have even phoned, mailed or texted me about the status of the Quarter Lady, but I fail to remember anything about her more recent status.<\/p>\n
After all, that was some time ago.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
So, if you see the Quarter Lady around, feel free to grease her palm with a coin. And if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see her, just drop it into a collection plate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some readers possibly don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realize that part of my alleged sense of humor comes from holding doors open for people, and as I do the honors, asking them for a quarter for my efforts. PLEASE realize this is a joke. I ask for the 25-cent tip mainly to test their reaction and discover how quickly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1566,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions\/1566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}