imported post
mpolo79 wrote:
bnkrazy wrote:
While I had the car door and shopping cart between he and I, he caught up and walked to the front of the car and started to ask if I could help him out.
He was about 10 feet away when I moved out from behind the door a bit and started to tell him "not today." I hadn't had a chance to get the words out of my mouth when I saw him glance down to my waist and he immediately turned and walked away at a brisk pace.
I can't say for sure he would have pushed the issue if he hadn't noticed the gun, but it was nice to not have to engage in any smalltalk.
Do you have a nice car? The fact that he didn't look destitute makes this encounter even more ominous. Perhaps he wanted to car jack you.
mpolo lets not jump to conclusions ok??
Not everybody who is destitute or homeless have to look like they just crawled out of the trashcan or have really bad clothing with holes or whatnot.
I used to be homeless on two occasions, each for approximately 6 months and yes I did panhandle from time to time.
I know a lot of people use it for drugs and alcohol, another homeless guy at the shelter I was staying at spent the money he made panhandling to buy lottery tickets.
But anyway this is getting off-topic, I lived at the Sally Ann homeless shelter at one time which in normalspeak is the Salvation Army, I was homeless but I always wore a suit and a bowler hat as that was the only clothing I owned and I didn't feel comfortable dressing in jeans and a tshirt so I could have walked by you on the street and you would never have known.
Yes it is possible that this person could have been trying to carjack bnkrazy but not looking homeless doesn't have to equate to not being homeless if you understand what I mean.
Let me tell you a story about one time I was panhandling.
I was sitting on a pedestrian-only street and next to me was a friend of mine who was around 17, I was in my early 20's then, I was sitting there with him in my suit and the cops walked by and told us that we couldn't sit there and asked us to move and we could come back in 10-15 mins when they had finished their walk of the area.
One of the cops looked at me in my suit and bowler hat and he asked me if I was homeless, I told him yep and that I lived at the Sally Ann and he exclaimed "Wow, you are the best dressed homeless person I have ever seen and that he really loved the bowler hat that I wore because it fit my whole outfit perfectly.
So a person can look like a million bucks but still need to ask for money from time to time, some areas don't have a good shelter system, some shelters demand that you pay a fee each night for staying there and in return you get a small room with a bed where you can sleep and have your things and a lock on your door to keep you safe because some of the homeless shelters can be very violent and dangerous.
Some people are just too proud to live in a homeless shelter so they would rather sleep under overpasses and other nooks and crannies then ask for help in a shelter.
While living at the Salvation Army we got a voucher for around $20 so we could walk to the Salvation Army Thrift Store and get some clothing or shoes or books if we didn't need more clothing and I am very lucky to be staying there as that was the most non-violent shelter of them all in the city where I was, though2weeksafterI moved out I heard from a person I used to know from the streets that somebody inside the shelter had been stabbed so I guess I was lucky to move out when I did.
But to make a long story short, I was very lucky that the city I was living in had a good shelter system, that they helped you out with clothing and stuff and that where I was living was pretty non-violent.
To end let me just tell you how I was as a person while living on the streets.
I was living in a homeless shelter almost downtown so there so I went to the art museum which was free and I also went to Chapters to read books but every day from around 10 AM until around 2 PM I was working as a volunteer at a soupkitchen to help other people who were in the same situation as me and so that I could give something back to the community instead of just drift around doing nothing productive that could help others because there wasn't much to do and that was free except for the museum and Chapters so I decided that the soupkitchen would be where I could be of the most service to others.
So a person walking up to you asking for money is not a big issue if they act normal and don't try to sneak up but as in bnkrazy's situation where the guy tried to keep out of his field of vision and was trailing him that would even get my back up that something was very wrong and I would stand at the car with the shopping cart between me and the other person but on the side of it that he could see the gun if I was carrying because as we all know that can be a huge deterrent in cases like this.
But just thinking that the guy is trying to carjack you because he doesn't look homeless is like methinking that an african-american friend of mine is a thug because he wears Fubu and baggypants but the guy is actually an amazing intellectual and a poet who studies Social Science at University and who wants to help people in the ghetto where he lives and he just feels comfortable in wearing that outfit and he goes all out when he dresses just like me but we should never stereotype people for the colour of their skin, for their sexuality, for their gender, for the clothes that they wear or their status in life, in my honest opinion, to do that just shows complete and utter ignorance but that is just my view though.
Sorry for the long post but I just had to say my peace.
And bnkrazy I am happy that nothing happened and I am also happy to see that your situational awareness skills are working perfectly. =o)
