In a moment of fleeting yet genuine generosity, I decided to give a little this morning in the subway station. The air was bitter cold. A man with no teeth, probably from meth, sat on the steps of the subway exit at Broadway-Lafayette. He looked sweet, in that no tooth sort of way - a kind of gummy innocence, his lips disppearing into his mouth - making him seem elderly and somehow almost holy. Seeing his toothless smile and hearing his reasonable request for "a little spare change", I remembered I'd found two dollars on the street a couple of days ago. I put those happy, found dollars in my pocket when I discovered them, knowing someone had lost them - and the only way to make that right would be to give those dollars to someone who really needed them. And here was my chance. All of the variables were in place - me, the coat, the homeless person, and the found money. I reached into my pocket and grabbed the bills. In one quick turn of my wrist, they were in the homeless man's cup. Tada!
His eyes grew very wide. He thanked me. And then he and I both realized what I had put in the cup - his was an exclamation of "Praise God!" Mine was more of an "Oh, shit." It appeared I had done away with the two dollars - and somehow replaced them with a twenty. The twenty was in the cup! I paused briefly, about to reach down to the homeless man, connect with him for a secon, tell him I had only intended to put two dollars in the cup, a generous amount, I thought. He would understand. I bent down to whisper in the man's ear, "Mind if I just switch this out? I meant to give you two, and I accidentally gave you this twenty. You see, now you have more money than I do. You understand, right?" And as I bent down, fingers pinched to retrieve from the dirty paper beverage container, a voice in my head said, "Don't. Just walk away. This was an act of God meant to humble you and make you keep better track of your bills. Get a better wallet and stop putting $20's in your coat pocket. And with any luck, you will laugh about this later."
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The Cup is Half Empty, The Cup is Half Full
In a moment of fleeting yet genuine generosity, I decided to give a little this morning in the subway station. The air was bitter cold. A man with no teeth, probably from meth, sat on the steps of the subway exit at Broadway-Lafayette. He looked sweet, in that no tooth sort of way - a kind of gummy innocence, his lips disppearing into his mouth - making him seem elderly and somehow almost holy. Seeing his toothless smile and hearing his reasonable request for "a little spare change", I remembered I'd found two dollars on the street a couple of days ago. I put those happy, found dollars in my pocket when I discovered them, knowing someone had lost them - and the only way to make that right would be to give those dollars to someone who really needed them. And here was my chance. All of the variables were in place - me, the coat, the homeless person, and the found money. I reached into my pocket and grabbed the bills. In one quick turn of my wrist, they were in the homeless man's cup. Tada!
His eyes grew very wide. He thanked me. And then he and I both realized what I had put in the cup - his was an exclamation of "Praise God!" Mine was more of an "Oh, shit." It appeared I had done away with the two dollars - and somehow replaced them with a twenty. The twenty was in the cup! I paused briefly, about to reach down to the homeless man, connect with him for a secon, tell him I had only intended to put two dollars in the cup, a generous amount, I thought. He would understand. I bent down to whisper in the man's ear, "Mind if I just switch this out? I meant to give you two, and I accidentally gave you this twenty. You see, now you have more money than I do. You understand, right?" And as I bent down, fingers pinched to retrieve from the dirty paper beverage container, a voice in my head said, "Don't. Just walk away. This was an act of God meant to humble you and make you keep better track of your bills. Get a better wallet and stop putting $20's in your coat pocket. And with any luck, you will laugh about this later."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Pea, good for you. I lose $20 every tuesday night in something as shallow as a poker game. Surely your accidental generosity will go towards something better. Or meth. Either way, what's $20 to the un/marginally employed?
Post a Comment