Hmm, that was weird. I stopped at the gas station on my way back from getting food around midnight, and as I went in to the store to leave my card, this dark-skinned sketchy guy in a wife-beater crouching by the door tried to ask me for something. He said, "Hey man," and then seeing my apprehension, said, "It's not money that I want. My truck is out of gas." This sounded like he was going to ask for a ride somewhere, which, needless to say, coming from someone on the street at midnight in PR when you drive a sought-after car, is not a request with much hope of being granted. Besides that, I was only out on my "lunch break" and was on my way back to work, and told him so. He pointed to the parking lot and said "I just need some gas, that's all," which normally I'd be happy to help him with, even if it WAS just a dumb cover story. But money is somewhat tight right now, so I apologized and declined and headed inside. I noticed he was gone when I came out.

Once I was done pumping gas, had paid, and was starting to drive off, a white, slightly chubby girl waved me down, and when I put down my window, she asked if she could have some money for gas. I told her the same, that I didn't have much money, but I did give her some change from the coin drawer.

The immediate succession of the two requests, and the nearly polar oppositeness of the people who made them, struck me as very odd. I couldn't help wondering if it was some sort of psychological experiment or study, comparing the success rates of the two different types of people. If so, it must be an assignment for someone's class at UPR or something, because such a study would not be exposing any groundbreaking new data. Aside from that, I don't think that having both people ask the same person in direct succession provides good data. I definitely felt more likely to give money to the second one just because "well OK, I can't turn people down twice within the span of five minutes."

Of course, Occam's Razor suggests that it was not anything as elaborate as that. I suppose another theory is that the guy legitimately had run out of gas and, when he saw that he didn't have much crediblity, recruited some more harmless-looking girl to ask for money for him.

But that's sort of improbable as well. What are the odds of running out of gas at a gas station? Well, OK, actually, I've done that myself — the Bonneville once died just as I was pulling up to the gas station, and I coasted to the pump. But to not even have a dollar or two to buy enough gas to get you home? Again, in a more trustworthy environment, I might give him the benefit of the doubt, but here, any implausible story is going to meet with stiff skepticism.

But I'm still really curious what the real story was.