A Soft, Warm Fuzzy

Her plump, dark brown face was at my window seemingly out of nowhere in the darkness, and startled me. I had an awareness that she was the same one I had seen near the dumpsters moments earlier, along with two other people, when I came out of the PetSmart store with the thirty-pound bag of dog food slung over my shoulder.

The other two people were children, a boy and a girl, neither older than ten years.

She spoke, but I could not hear. City-dweller alarm bells were going off in my ears. She was in violation of my vehicle's personal space. Talking. But I could not hear. I knew what she wanted, but what I wanted was to get home. I rolled my window down a crack, my psyche unable to be so callous as to ignore her.

"What?" I said, disrespectfully.

Her voice came out in a monotone, a line seemingly rehearsed and delivered by a bad actor. "Please sir could you spare some change sir for I could buy my kids some food we have nothing to eat at home and we hungry a dime a quarter a dollar..."

"Clever ploy," I thought as my eyes darted first to the boy, and then to the girl, both fidgeting like bored kids fidget, neither looking famished, neither looking embarrassed that their mother was begging in a parking lot. "Using the kids kicks it up a notch."

On the even chance that the woman, herself overweight, was telling the truth about their plight, I caved. They were worth lightening my wallet by the weight of a dollar. I opened my wallet and frowned at the lone bill tucked away there.

I felt the power shift to the woman. I had opened my wallet, I was committed to giving her something, and I was struck by how absurd it would be for me to ask if she could break a twenty. Feeling slightly desperate, my eyes scanned the parking lot. About a hundred yards away I saw the bright red letters above the door of the discount grocery, Cub Foods.

"Look," I said to the woman while avoiding eye contact, "all I have is a twenty." I looked back at Cub Foods, heard its suggestion, and I forwarded it.

"Can I buy you some food? What do you need?"

It is an old, 1930s B-movie cliché, but it is also the truth. In response to my question the woman's eyes widened brightly, white contrasting powerfully against the black of the night, the brown of her skin. "OH! Thank you sir! Thank you! Some ground beef and some cheese and a loaf of bread will feed us tonight sir that would be wonderful sir I thank you so much..."

"Okay," I said, pointing toward the grocery store. "Meet me by the entrance of the Cub Foods."

The woman gathered up her children, and I pulled out of the slot and steered my car toward the grocery store.

At the door I confirmed her grocery list, and then I headed toward the door.

"And please, sir, if it's not too much trouble, could you get me some laundry detergent for my kids could have clean clothes for school tomorrow?"

She had passed my test. She had asked for money so she could feed her kids, and I had countered with an offer to buy them food. Her enthusiastic response had sold me, so I did not, I could not refuse her additional request, though I did feel she was taking advantage of my charity, just a little.

In the store I picked up a pound and a half of ground beef, a pound of sliced American cheese and a loaf of white sandwich bread. I also grabbed two large cans of soup, and I debated getting a candy bar for each of the kids, and then decided against it for fear that the kids might just want to eat the candy and forego the opportunity for some real nutrition.

As I roamed the aisles of Cub Foods, I felt a surge of something in my chest, and then in my throat. And suddenly I was on the verge of tears. The woman's response had been counter to my expectations. She preferred a gift of food to a handful of change. She had given the right answer to the one-question test I had given her, and now I was in the rush of knowing I was doing the right thing the right way for someone less fortunate.

I stepped out into the cool evening air half expecting her and the kids to be gone, either disbelieving me, or shooed away by store security. But they were there. I raised the plastic grocery bags for her to see.

"All that's for me? Oh! Thank you sir! God bless you! God bless you, sir!" She clutched at the bag as she praised me, yet I was still unable to look her in the eye. "Come on, kids! Let's go home," she said as she turned away from me, and then she spun once more. "Thank you sir! God bless!" Again with her back to me, she disappeared into the night.

I walked to my car a bit lighter in my step, and with pride in my chest. In my reluctance to hand her a twenty-dollar bill for fear that I'd never see my nineteen dollars in change, I had instead spent fifteen dollars and change, and fed a family...perhaps twice.

When you feel the impulse to give to someone begging for spare change because he's hungry, and you have the time, opportunity and money, offer to give him food instead. If he accepts your offer, then you know you've done the right thing by helping to feed the truly hungry. If he refuses your offer and insists on cash, then you're still doing the right thing by keeping one person away from the alcohol or drugs that a few more coins might help them obtain.

It does them good. It does you good.