Sometimes when I get out of work at 6 A.M., I stop by the panadería down the street to get breakfast. Often there's a homeless guy sitting out front begging for change or food. Today the guy asked me for a cigarette, and I apologized and said I didn't have any, but offered to buy him something from the panadería instead. He said sure, and asked for a coffee.
I went inside and ordered my food and the coffee. When I stepped back outside, I handed the coffee to the bum and started walking to my car. A few paces later, another guy asked me, "Did you get my coffee?" Crap. They all kind of look the same. :)
For a second I briefly considered going back and asking for it back from the other guy, but I realized that'd be pretty uncool. As he realized what had happened, he said not to worry about it, but I didn't want to leave him with nothing, so I gave him a buck so he could go buy himself another coffee. Or maybe a red bandanna so I can find him next time.
Posted by Cat 2 hours, 57 minutes later
Thats kind of sweet but the words "bum" and "they all look the same" just don't sit well with me.
Posted by Dan 4 hours, 58 minutes later
Yeah, I too am not a big fan of the word 'bum', but there aren't many flattering synonyms to refer to a homeless person. It's kind of like using 'jap' to refer to a Japanese person — it's short and convenient and I think as long as you don't say it spitefully it's not necessarily offensive (or shouldn't be, at least).
As for the "they all look the same" part, yeah, it's not a nice thing to say, but that's kind of the point — even though I was being helpful, it was made embarassingly obvious that I couldn't tell one apart from another. It was kind of awkward :) Of course, that's mostly just a general limitation on my part — I just don't remember faces very well, and I usually discern people based on the color of the clothes they're wearing. The color of both of these guys' clothes was "dirt."