My friends Alycia, Barbie, Gretchen and I spent last night in Chicago. We had tickets for this morning to attend a taping of the Oprah show. (No - I DIDN'T get a car.....but I did get to see Jennifer Hudson perform live, which was awesome.)
After the taping, we went to a great little restaurant called "Silver Cloud" that advertises its "comfort food." I was a little disappointed that chicken pot pie is only the dinner menu, but I made due.
Anyway, as we were getting ready to leave, Gretchen asked our waiter for a to-go bag so she could put the rest of her turkey club sandwich in it. She said to us, "Do you think I could find a homeless person to give this to?"
I should have prefaced this statement -- on the way to the restaurant, we saw a homeless guy with the required homeless-guy sign begging for money. Seeing him, she commented how much seeing homeless people disturbed her daughter, Andrea, because she feels so badly for their plight. Andrea has been so affected by the difficult situation for the homeless that she helps raise money for the Good Samaritan Inn (a local soup kitchen) as well as volunteers there at times. Since Gretchen still had half of a very good sandwich that she hadn't even touched (the portions were big), she hated to see it go to waste if someone who was hungry could have it.
As luck would have it, we DID see a homeless person as we came to a stop light after leaving the restaurant - he had the required homeless-guy sign and everything. Putting down her window, the guy beat feet to the car because he expected money, but instead Gretchen handed him the bag saying, "I have a turkey sandwich if you'd like it."
He pondered for a moment then said, "where's it from?" Clearly surprised, Gretchen stammered for a second, then answered, "Silver Cloud."
"OK." the guy answered. He then took the bag and hooked it on one of the posts of the nearby fence and went back to trolling for change among the cars stopped at the stoplight.
Forget what you've been told. Apparently, beggars CAN be choosers.
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5 comments:
When you give and expect thanks in return, it's no longer a gift, it's a service with required payment. That said, at least the guy saved for later, he was, after all on the clock at HIS job. So... thanks, Gretchen for caring enough to not waste a good sandwich.
Thanks for the sermon, P...whoever you are. I never said thanks was expected. It was just surprising to see a guy who was standing outside, begging for change in 20 degree weather being picky about where the sandwich came from. Lighten up - - damn.
soooo soooory, didn't mean to sound preachie, but, I do understand wanting to know who made the sandwich, after all there are some spooky folks out there. p.s. p is how your blog logs in papadale ocasionally
I thought this was an interesting post, B.
I used to run across a lot of beggars in detroit and would offer to buy them lunch. But they didn't want that, just the money...which I refused to do.
Sad.
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