Incident in the WalMart Parking Lot - lessons learned...
 

Last night, Max and I paid a visit to the local Wal-Mart in our town Highland Village. Not unlike any other day, we seem to visit there at least 4 times a week. It was about quarter to nine at night and we had decided that we should exercise the Porsche. As we were loading some groceries into the modest rear seats a women and small boy approached us. She was in her thirties and the boy maybe the better half of six. She was holding a hand printed corrugated sign stating that she had lost her job and needs money.

"Please sir, I have lost my job and must feed my son." She begged. From her dialect I could tell she was neither Indian or Pakistani. I nodded her off.

She pressed. "Please sir, can you help me?" I shook my head 'no' again and turned my back. Max was next to me and he said in a low tone "Dad, what should we do? She's not leaving." I looked at him and said, "I'll handle this." I walked towards her. She had a dead stare. Not a stare of desperation but rather one of a seasoned poker player. I have lost my share at the tables so I am pretty darn familiar with that look.

"Listen, I know what your up to. Your not gonna do it here. Not in this town. Take it to Dallas, Fort Worth or Lewisville but not here. If I see you here again I am going to call the police." She just stared at me - a steely stare. She didn't move. I could feel her defiance like a wet wool blanket on my bare back. I didn't like it. I looked over at my son. He was waiting in anticipation for the next play.

"My God women! Have some pride! Take a look around. Wal-Mart, Rosa's Café heck even Jumba Juice is hiring. And you bring your son out to beg! You should be ashamed. GO NOW!" I said with a cold stare that I wish was more. She turned and walked away.

We got into the Targa. I didn't say a word but as I was pulling out he said, "Dad, check it out! She's getting into a Lexus! She has a new Lexus SUV!" He was like a dog out a window. "Dad! She has kid team stickers on the back! She's a scammer Dad! A scammer!" Yup, a Lexus with kid sport team stickers - means she spends good money (like we do) on the kids sports teams.

On the short ride home I said "Max, I know I may have seemed harsh but I want you to understand. If someone really needed our help I would gladly give without hesitation. I have never asked for a handout and either has your Mother or your grandparents. We have what we have because we earned it and deserve it. There is always opportunity to earn money if your willing to work." He listened quietly and agreed.

For the record, Max always has a few hundred dollars in his wallet. Never from handouts but rather from cutting lawns, not spending and giving loans to his little sister at 10% interest. We are still working on him. It may take some time. .

I've also been panhandled in Wal-Mart parking lots. I never give them a thing. They're all scammers. The one closest to me cannot be walked to and there's no public transportation there, meaning they had to drive there.

I had a similar thing happen to me at a gas station in Redding, California one day. Three of us were on our way home from a trip in our early 911's; my late buddy "Drago" was riding shotgun with me. We just stopped to fill up and stretch our legs a bit, when some young (college aged) white Rastafarian looking dude comes walking up and asks for money.

I said "no" as politiely as I could, but he kept pressing. He finally went into a full-on rant about spoiled rich boys in Porsches (if he only knew...), about how some chick in his crapped out old Suburban parked accross the lot need some help, how she had worked harder in her life for less than guys like us could ever realize, yadda yadda yadda. He was on the verge of getting violent.

So, I wound up doing the right thing - I pulled the gas nozzle out of my tank and blasted the punk, soaking him down pretty darn good. Then I leaned in the car and asked Drago for his lighter. Boy, could that little bastard run. Way too fast for this old fart.

I was in the Tampa area last weekend and panhandlers were on almost every intersection, positioned on the center island . Placards with their message.

Recently, I took a photo of one. His message was scribbled on the back of a sign he pulled off the side of the highway. It was an advertisement for Comcast, that they were hiring at $12/hr, no experience.

FREELOADERS: A John Stossel Fox News Special
Some Americans actually make a living … begging for money. Professional panhandlers, they’re called, sometimes making more than $100 in a day. I tried it in Manhattan, and made over $11 in one hour—that would be $23,000 a year—tax free!

It’s a small example of why some said that the USA is turning into a nation of freeloaders. The Manhattan Institute’s Heather MacDonald says that beggars she’s encountered “have the most deep-seated sense of entitlement that I’ve ever come across.”

From those defaulting on their home mortgages, to those who see lawsuits as a lottery ticket, many Americans live off the hard work of others.

I look at how government turns people into freeloaders Did you know that any black person who has farmed or “attempted to farm” can collect $50,000 from the Federal government? “Attempted to farm could mean anything,” says black farmer Jimmy Dismuke, “My little three year old grandson could attempt it.”

We’ll introduce you to a woman who hasn’t paid her mortgage in 25 years… and doesn’t ever intend to. I confront the founders of “youwalkaway.com”, a website dedicated to advising people on how to walk away from their home mortgages .

Some of America’s biggest recipients of handouts are rich people. The biggest corporate freeloaders may be the biggest industrial corporation in the world: General Electric.

General Electric CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt is super-close to President Obama. The president named Immelt chairman of his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Before that, Immelt was on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. He's a regular companion when Obama travels abroad to hawk American exports. (Why does business need government to do that?)

I'll also reveal some of my own freeloading. Federal flood insurance is a freebie for those of rich enough to have waterfront property, I collected on that. People like Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen take advantage of tax benefits that are supposed to help farmers.

Is America becoming a nation of freeloaders?


Read more: FREELOADERS: A John Stossel Fox News Special « John Stossel

I stopped handing out money in Chicago when following some Nuns down the walkway and they didn't even stop!

Couple years ago bar hopping in Georgetown , $5 covers at all the bars.
While in line to get into a bar this down on his luck street guy walks past and tells me a funny joke.
I applaud is sense of humor in spite of his seemingly desperate situation and give him a couple bucks.
Later that night he is inside a cover only bar drinking a $5 beer, he got me. :rolleyes:

I had a lady approach me recently with the story that she needed enough gas to get back home 90 miles away. I just told her I gave at the office and walked away.

The only time I gave a panhandler any money was in Dallas for a week. I was at a hotel that was not great but not bad. My Porsche was in the parking lot near the back close to a light pole and I could see it from my room. Some meth heads parked near that area late at night to sleep in their car. When I left that morning they were zonked out cold. That afternoon as I pulled into my same spot they approached and said they need gas money to get home. I gave them 10 bucks and told them if I see them again I will call the cops. They had spent the entire day hanging out in the parking lot. I just did not want them around my car all night. I told the hotel clerk about them and he said they were just harmless folks. Yea, right meth heads are all harmless.

I live in Tampa. Yesterday I was going to pickup my daughter and was stopped at a red light. The guy in the median was holding a sign "Why lie, I need a beer."

They are on every corner here and the city has no balls to do anything about them.

Mike,
You did the right thing and I'm glad your son was with you. People have a hard time believing scammers are everywhere out there, but they are and anyone who gives them $ is as guilty as the scammers are...

Behind a guy to pay for my gas, he was getting a bunch of lotto tickets. Going back to my car he stops me and says "youz gotta cupple bucks fir sum gas" I said "your lotto tickets didn't pay off?

I was eating at a fast food joint several years back when a scraggly old man with a toothless smile came stumbling in. He walked around to all of the patrons of the establishment asking for money, and was turned away by nearly all of them. When he got to me, he asked "you got $0.60 so I can buy myself a sandwich?". I replied that he would need more than that to get a sandwich, and gave him a fiver. He proceeded to walk straight to the gas station next door and bought a pack of cigarettes. Didn't even try to hide it, as I was sitting next to a window in full view. Sorry sack of schit. :mad: Since then everyone begging gets a polite no, and if pressed gets told to find a damn job like the rest of us.

Jeff, somehow I don't believe this story. That was assault, plain and simple and it would have gotten you a free ticket to jail. You don't seem to be that stupid. And, CA gas nozzles don't shoot gas very well and only if you pull back the vapor recovery bellows. You might have gotten his feet.


I wanted to make a funny here referring back to the "Why do we carry" thread. But it's not coming to me. I'm pretty damn rude to panhandlers sometimes barking at them about their nuisance. As I've mentioned here before, most have pimps that take a percentage, transport them in vans to locations that are protected by beating up non conformers.

Want to piss off these pros? Hand one of them an orange to eat. Their pimp will not be amused.

I guess I could have given here the gallon of milk and loaf of bread I bought. Something tells me that 2% and whole wheat just wouldn't have cut it...

Maybe in a third world country this is understandable but come on... At Walmart???

It's like they have no self worth or pride. I can't see myself ever asking for hand outs.
I would rather starve until I found a job ANY JOB rather than beg.

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One thing I don't understand... She came all the way from India or Pakistan to beg for money in the USA?

Does that make any sense to anybody here? I just don't get it.

I've seen beggars in China and Mexico that would be rich in the US. Kids with no legs, dragging themselves through the streets, using their nose to push a can with some coins in it, a girl with water on the brain, using a dog squeaker toy to say "xie xie" when I dropped a 10 RMB note in her can. Those people would make a mint in the US and really can't work. In DC I saw panhndlers with cell phones and nice shoes all the time. What a joke.

Near work there's a guy stands on the median with the sign "Homeless, hungry (blah, blah, blah) God Bless!". I'm behind a guy in a construction truck who's handing him a bill ($5 or 10) and as homeless guy is grabbing for it his cell phone rings and he pulls it out of his pocket and answers the call. I thought construction guy was going to cold c*ck him right there.

I've been yelled at more than once by panhandlers when I gave them food instead of money.

I was hit up by one of those coming out of Taco Bell one time; I just reached into my bag and gave him a taco. I don't think he would have been any more surprised if I'd slapped him in the face with a halibut.