On Asking for Change

Philadelphia, PA - vz - Wednesday, April 13th, 2005 : goo

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Walking, mostly absorbed in thought, I suddenly hear:

"Hey! Hey, you're my buddy from the Wawa, remember?"

And by that, the middle-aged man, friendly in that crushed kind of way, meant that he recognized me, that he'd asked me for change several times in front of the Wawa that's a block from my building and that rather than just walking past as if he wasn't even there I'd shrugged and said something along the lines of "sorry, man" and maybe even made eye contact a couple of times.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, hi..."

"So buddy, you think you could spare me some change?"

"Uh, sorry, I don't think I've got any on me..."

The routine. And with that, I was just about to walk past, when I suddenly remembered that, for no particular reason, I still had a bunch of Ukrainian coins in my wallet, from my recent two-month stay there. On a whim and because I was bored, I added, "...except for these, if you want a few."

I handed him a couple of the coins, and as he looked them over, explained rather superflously, "they're from the Ukraine..."

"What you mean?"

This set me aback a little. My first impulse was to say something like "you know, where they're having the election crisis" but my reality-check quickly scaled that back to "they're from a foreign country, where they have different money."

He pondered this for a second. "Ohh.. so you gotta go trade 'em in?"

"Well, I guess you could... but they're only worth about two cents."

"Oh." He looked them over for another couple seconds, "Naw, you can keep 'em."

"Are you sure? Here, do you want to keep one as a souvenir?"

"Naw."

Feeling a bit off-center for having just had my money rejected by a homeless person, I produced a hesitant "ok" and started off. He called behind me, asking if I was alright.

Then I realized the obvious, and with it, just what a world of privilege I enjoyed, just how far removed I was from this man's world despite inhabiting the same physical space as him. He wasn't standing there panhandling for the novelty of the experience or as a way to meet interesting people; he was standing in front of a liquor store.

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jamie: Peter: have you checked the devsite?

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