I stopped in a hair salon to see the owner, who is a lady I went to high school with, about our upcoming 40th reunion. Sitting outside, between the salon and a Subway sandwich shop, was some dude who waved at me as I pulled into the parking lot. He waved, then flipped me off. Odd. But okay. I parked the car and when I got out of the car to go into the salon, he said hello and mumbled something. I absolutely could not understand him. I said hello and he mumbled again. Missing most of his front teeth. I should have ignored him, but I asked him to repeat himself. Again, I didn’t understand a word. Then he did this ridiculous fake crying thing and put his hand on his stomach and said he’s hungry. Ah. Exactly what I figured. I told him I don’t carry cash, just cards and walked into the store as he yelled something unintelligible, but I’m sure insulting by the tone. The verbal equivalent of the wave turned into the finger.
Turns out, I missed my friend and she wasn’t there. (I should’ve called or text first but thought I’d surprise her. The surprise was on me!)
I stepped outside and he is now mumbling at me in a much louder voice than before, escalating in volume and venom with every three or four “words.” This time, I did catch as I was maybe halfway to the car, “can I have a sandwich?!”
Now, sometimes I do buy hungry people food. Sometimes I give money to people who need it when they ask and sometimes when they don’t, but I can tell they need it. If an ask starts with flipping me the birds then employs really terrible fake crying to garner sympathy and then an immediate pivot to yelling and insulting me, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in Miami Beach of them getting a damn thing from me.
And to boot, this guy is telling me he’s hungry to the point of holding his stomach and producing (fake) tears, but he had a cell phone he was scrolling around on and he was smoking a cigarette. So he has money to buy a cell phone and have service, AND he can buy cigarettes…but he expects passersby- who he flips off, by the way - to believe he’s starving because he has no money to get a sandwich?
Okay Uncle MethHead. We believe you. 🤦🏻♂️