There are two sets of escalators you have to take to get out of the Woodley Park Metro. Tonight, on the landing between them, I spotted a guy about my age sheepishly asking passersby for spare change. He was holding a SmarTrip card & looking a little embarrassed; sometimes this happens, that people just don't have enough, for whatever reason, so they ask kind strangers for help. It's happened to me before, actually, when I found myself sans wallet & 25 cents short.
I'd been trying on clothes at Macy's for the past two hours, annoyed every time I took off my jeans & my pocketful of changed rolled all over the dressing room floor. So as I got closer to the guy, I dug into my pocket, ready to rid myself of the offending coins, especially if it meant helping a stuck traveler. I handed them to him & we exchanged pleasantries; as I walked away, he told me to "have a blessed day."As I hopped on the second escalator, I noticed that a 30-something woman a few steps ahead of me was walking down the up escalator, which is sort of a feat past the age of 12. And she was walking toward me! She approached me & said with determination, "Excuse me. You should know that that man is a con artist. He's always here, asking for money."
I didn't know what to say & didn't want to be rude, so I sort of put my head down & said, "Oh, thanks. I just gave him 35 cents." She repeated her warning - "He's here all the time" - & returned to her spot a few steps above me.
It wasn't a big deal, so I'm not sure why my initial reaction was one of such shock. But I was sort of offended, mostly. I mean, come on. A con artist? Who conned me out of 35 cents? I haven't been conned out of much in my life, but even I've been conned out of more than 35 cents. If this dude was a con artist, he sure wasn't a very good one, if all he's conning people out of is a fraction of a train fare.
"He's here all the time," she said. But so am I. I'm here all the time, & I've never seen him. And even if I had, so what? Does seeing someone more than once preclude them from being worthy of a few spare dimes? I've been known to give to the same homeless people - to Antonio in Cleveland Park, to James who sells newspapers, to the guy who holds the door at the Dupont CVS. They're there all the time, too, but if I can spend $4.50 on a frappucino, I can certainly put the leftover change in their cups if I so please. It's not like I gave him a tenspot.
I know the woman meant well, & that's why I thanked her. But I wasn't about to engage her any further. I don't know what my point is, really, except remember that post I wrote about the Mother Theresa quote? I think it applies here. "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle." And who knows what sort of battles that mezzanine-level "con artist" is fighting? Maybe my 35 cents was just the weapon he needed to fight back, to hop on the train with a smile.Or maybe he wasn't fighting any battles at all. Maybe he's just a cheapskate who didn't feel like paying his own way to the end of the redline. But even if that's the case, I feel confident knowing that my 35 cents went to bettering my karma.
