Homeless and... (Hungry?)

Tonight the “Regular Homeless Guy” who hangs out at the exit ramp from the freeway nearest my home held a sign that read: “Homeless. Need money for a hotel room”. I gave him a dollar. It’s been crazy cold the last couple of days and at the time I handed him the dollar, it was 26 degrees - far too cold for anyone to sleep outside.

As a rule, I don’t give money to homeless people. Typically, I carry food and/or water in the car, and that’s what I hand out when I see someone in need. The food in the car is a family project and Lucy and Ben donate a portion of their allowances for this purpose. Lucy, in particular, takes this family project very seriously and takes great pride in helping me pick out the food.

The guy to whom I gave the dollar tonight is no stranger to our family project. He has been at that corner for a couple of years now and we have a long history together. Until about a year ago, he held a sign that said “Homeless and Hungry”. Over time, we offered him many things, all of which he refused (often quite rudely), to the dismay of my children. Trail mix (too crunchy), granola bars (too chewy), beef jerky (too tough), water (I have enough). Lucy, especially, was disappointed each time and vowed with each refusal to find something he would like. She finally suggested applesauce because he would be able to eat it, even with bad teeth. But I had not yet purchased the applesauce when he dealt our bleeding hearts their final blow about a year ago.

That day, when we pulled up to the intersection, our Regular Homeless Guy had crossed “Hungry” off his sign using a thick, black magic marker. Clearly he had grown weary of our advances. So we’ve left him alone for the better part of a year. We haven’t bothered him with our unwelcome offers of food or water. Once, last summer, I saw him yelling at someone in the car in front of me who had offered him something other than cash. I was oddly relieved to know that it wasn’t just us.

But tonight I couldn’t resist and I rolled down my window and gave him a dollar. The very dollar that I intended to slip back into Lucy’s wallet tonight - the dollar the tooth fairy “borrowed” from Lucy’s wallet last night when she unexpectedly pulled a tooth close to bedtime. So the dollar didn’t make it back into Lucy’s wallet tonight – it will have to wait until tomorrow. Something tells me, though, that given all the facts, Lucy wouldn’t mind a bit.