How much might a person earn as a door holder opener? I can answer that in a heartbeat: exactly 25 cents.<\/p>\n
Let me explain:<\/p>\n
One day, as I was leaving a downtown restaurant I saw a man. a stranger, racing to hold the door open for a family of four. I heard the man in the group utter something like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to tip you for that, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any change.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I have no doubt a tip for such a simple act was far from anything the door opener was hoping for.<\/p>\n
Then, as the patriarch of the old Katzenjammer Kids comic strip would say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gifs idea.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d try it too.<\/p>\n
But let me proceed with my myriad accounts: I certainly am not hard up; I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need the money; I realize more people carry plastic than loose change; I ask for a tip only to test others\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 reactions; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve received only 25 cents in my life, and that was almost forced on me by a woman, a stranger, who insisted, explaining, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have a right to earn a living.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And finally, I suspect she had wanted the quarter in her hand expecting her genial door opener to ask for compensation.<\/p>\n
Additionally, I realize there are needier people, those who would benefit from a handful of quarters which might add up to the price of a meal or a snack. I certainly don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to compete with them. But the lady insisted, and I became richer for that.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, as I mentioned in a previous column, my family went to Souper Salad in Santa Fe, and as we arrived, I hurried to hold the door open for a couple about my age.<\/p>\n
I included the requisite \u00e2\u20ac\u015325 cents, please\u00e2\u20ac\u009d phrase and got a surprising response: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you get a job? I work for my money.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
He had a point. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a person who did OK as a wage earner, still employed in his old age, masquerading as a mendicant. But regardless of what I was thinking at the time, I needed to explain to the angry stranger that my request had been in jest, a conversation starter with a stranger who I discovered wanted no chit-chat.<\/p>\n
I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t argue, but he persisted in asking why a person with a fairly new car, suitable clothes and a presentable wife would be bugging people at a restaurant. To punctuate his loathing of my request, he made it a point to seat himself and his family far away from us.<\/p>\n
But that gesture never cured me. I remembered the many times I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d used the same plea and ploy in Las Vegas and even got pleasant reactions from the would-be donors.<\/p>\n
The experience taught me several things: I like to remain outside of a restaurant when I begin my plaintive plea, For that reason, restaurant doors that open in don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work, as I choose not to enter the establishment at that moment.<\/p>\n
The most common reaction is a smile or a chuckle, or a quick \u00e2\u20ac\u0153put it on my tab.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Next is simply being ignored. And then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the fake fumbling for an imaginary coin, with the admission that he or she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find one.<\/p>\n
One person had a quarter in her hand, ready to transfer it into mine. I was busted; she took seriously something I was teasing about. But she persisted, which made me think she was on to me and maybe had seen my panhandling antics before. So I accepted the quarter after explaining I was only kidding.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
I refuse to do it. Checking numerous versions of the obscenity-laced comment of our president, referring to Haiti and some African countries as less-than-desireable nations of origin for American immigrants, I hit a verbal roadblock.<\/p>\n
You see, I have read numerous accounts of the choice words of The Donald and am struggling with whether to spell out his exact words or to use some kind of euphemism. After all, if I try to sanitize the dialect of that politician by using \u00e2\u20ac\u0153excrement\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for the s-word, am I not simply couching language in a way that makes it seem more eloquent?<\/p>\n
As noted, in the past several days, the unedited word Trump used had appeared both on the air and in print. Some sources, such as our paper, merely hint at the word Trump used. I think Trump\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s choice of words was tacky, tacky, tacky. Moreover, such usage displays to the world some of Trump\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s basic feelings toward people of different countries, origins, races and backgrounds.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m of two minds: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to express what I really feel about our coarse-speaking president and I also feel compelled to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153keep it clean.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Here goes:<\/p>\n
I believe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s @#!**& for the president to have used swear words in his &%#@ dealings with Haiti and some African countries. It *@%&# me when an out-of-control person uses !%*$~#%^& in describing another country. All he did was show his ?#@*&@% ignorance.
\nWhew! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so-oo glad I got that off my chest and was able to express myself clearly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How much might a person earn as a door holder opener? I can answer that in a heartbeat: exactly 25 cents. Let me explain: One day, as I was leaving a downtown restaurant I saw a man. a stranger, racing to hold the door open for a family of four. I heard the man in […]<\/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\/1718"}],"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=1718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1719,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions\/1719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}