Panhandling used to be the exception; now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s epidemic. Sure, we all get used to seeing the occasional person holding up a building, or at a traffic light, holding up a cardboard sign containing a plea and a blessing. But it seems to have become big business.<\/p>\n
Three weeks ago, we stopped for a red light as we entered Albuquerque\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Paseo del Norte from Interstate 25. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not merely a series of lights that manage traffic trying to get on to that street but another bank of lights that greets motorists as soon as they get on to the ramp. There may be as many as a dozen sets of traffic lights in that area.<\/p>\n
The red lights we faced held up traffic for a full two minutes, enough time for a scantily clad woman of about 17 to ask for money. One stopped driver honked and beckoned her. He gave her some cash; she performed a five-second shake of the upper regions, waited for the next honk, and did the same for Driver No. 2.<\/p>\n
In those two minutes, she may have \u00e2\u20ac\u0153serviced\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a half dozen cars and made several bucks for her gyrations. Then, as we drove over the overpass, we saw another bank of traffic lights. Stationed at three of the crossings were four men \u00e2\u20ac\u201d no flesh-jiggling entertainment \u00e2\u20ac\u201d just hand-painted cardboard signs. One man had a gasoline can.<\/p>\n
The rules of the road are that thou shalt always help anyone with a gas can; that means they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve run out of gas and need to buy a gallon or two. It seems all the participants \u00e2\u20ac\u201d none apparently a day over 25 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d did well.<\/p>\n
A while back, an Albuquerque TV station investigated a young man collecting money for gas. He carried a five-gallon gas can with him and asked passing motorists to chip in. The TV reporter secretly filmed him over several days. The question became: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What kind of luck makes the young man run out of gas at exactly the same intersection, every day?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Obviously the plea for gas money was a ruse, and when exposed, the young man, left that area, becoming \u00c2\u00a0camera-shy. But are beggars today even fazed by exposure? More likely, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simply a way of doing business. They ask for money, and if motorists are anything like me, they help the person along, even suspecting there no out-of-gas car nearby.<\/p>\n
My late mother had a term, sin verguenzas, for people she suspected made a living by feigning hardships. These shameless, yet able-bodied, people she knew how to deal with. Too bad the ability to say no wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t passed on to this easy-touch \u00e2\u20ac\u201d me.<\/p>\n
Apparently, the panhandlers have found gain in other people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficulty in saying no. I find it hard to refuse most requests for a handout and have discovered that giving an amount as small as a dollar sometimes earns me a look that says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He could have given me a five. Well, this guy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a real cheap-o.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
But on the other hand, what can a dollar buy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Panhandling used to be the exception; now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s epidemic. Sure, we all get used to seeing the occasional person holding up a building, or at a traffic light, holding up a cardboard sign containing a plea and a blessing. But it seems to have become big business. Three weeks ago, we stopped for a red […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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\/451"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}