Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Pet Peeve

Today, Glenn and I were supposed to go up to Austin to visit his Grandpa in the hospital. We had just been on the road for about 20 minutes when Glenn got a call saying not to come. Apparently Grandpa didn't want any visitors. So Glenn went back to work, and I went to the grocery store since I wasn't subbing today.

I had just parked at Wal-Mart and was walking toward the entrance when a car with two men in it stopped and yelled, "MA'AM!!!" to get my attention. They then proceeded to ask "In God's glory, can you please spare some money for us?"

This really made me angry for several reasons.

1. They were two able-bodied men who could be working. If they spent the energy that they were using scouting out people in the parking lot and asking for money, they could be inquiring about employment!

2. They were driving a fairly nice looking pick-up truck, not brand-new, but not beat-up either.

3. They were using gas to circle around the Wal-Mart parking lot asking for money. If they REALLY needed money that bad, they would park the car and save gas by traveling on foot!

4. Anybody at Wal-Mart ( a discount retailer) on Tuesday in the middle of the day is either unemployed, a part-time worker, elderly or retired, disabled, or a stay at home parent, all of which probably don't have too much extra money to donate to you!

5. If you want to beg people for their hard-earned money, please don't bring God into it!

I told them, "I'm sorry I'm unemployed right now," which is true. I do work for $90/day as a substitute, but I don't get work every day. I'm also a student, so I'm paying much more money to tuition, books, my certification class, and art supplies than I am bringing in. It is a sacrifice for a goal that will pay off very soon. Yes, Glenn has a good engineering job, but we need every penny. If we do have extra money ever, we will start saving for a down-payment on a house, or pay off student loans! We have to be really careful with our money, and he has worked too hard to be throwing it away to some loser who could be working themselves! I just think that they have a lot of nerve!

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