He couldn't have been all that hungry

After seeing a show in Pasadena Friday night, a bunch of us ended up at Konrad's because they were open late. I've never been before, but it's a diner/Denny's/Coco's kind of place. Afterward, four of us stood in the parking lot chatting for a while. This was around 12:30/1:00am. While we were out there, a man came up on a bicycle and interrupted our conversation. He was saying something about being hungry and asking if we could spare any change. OK, the fact that he came zipping up on a pretty decent bike struck me as a bit odd. Maybe I'm just stereotyping, but I don't expect homeless people (and I'm going to go ahead and assume that only homeless people are wandering around begging for money) to have fairly nifty bicycles. One of the people in our group had a box of leftovers from our late night/early morning breakfast, so he offered it to the guy, opening the box to show him. The guy looked and asked what it was, and then when told, he said, nah, that's ok, you keep it. He made some comment about not being able to tell what it was. And then he proceeded to ask for money again. OK, it's not like he was being offered dog food or trash that was going to be thrown out. And it wasn't like it was half-chewed stuff or anything. Since it was in a take-out box, it's obviously food that's meant to be eaten. If he had really been that hungry, even if he couldn't tell what it was upon looking at it, you'd think that after hearing that it was regular food, he would have accepted the food and been thankful. I mean, after all, he's asking for money for food because he's hungry. If you're turning down actual food and still asking for money, how much am I going to believe you that you that you're just hungry and looking for a means to buy food? Ummm, not so much.

I know that people are homeless and don't have a means to eat, but I don't know that I believe this was one of those guys. If he wasn't, then shame on him for trying to scam people. If he was, then shame on him for turning down someone's nice gesture of actually offering food to someone claiming to be hungry.