The unthinkable happened to me yesterday: a homeless man gave ME money.
I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it's true.
I was playing tennis at the usual ghetto courts (homeless people and crackheads loiter in groups of 6-12 [people, not age {although I thought it would be fun to try a triple-parenthetical}]), and during a changeover a homeless man of about 48 (years, not a mob of homeless personalities) came toward the fence and started muttering some incoherent line of pathetic-sounding questioning. At first I ignored him because I was talking to my friend, but he kept muttering so I feigned interest with an bratty-annoyed “What?” just long enough to hear him say something like, “…you gonna take the 5 on it?”
“No, dude,” I replied, with a go away, wtf eye roll.
As I walked back to my end of the court, I saw him walking closer to the fence, until he got right up near where our bags were sitting. My first thought was that he was gonna try to snag something, then suddenly he lodged a wad of cash in a fence hole and walked away.
I've never really had anyone wad up money and give it to me for no discernable reason, so I froze for a second. Then I said something like, “Hey, umm, what is that for again? Are you… Uhh… What is it you want?”
But he didn't even turn around.
I (we, I suppose) let the money sit there. Does it count as a good deed to give a homeless man back his own money?
15 minutes later he hadn't returned, so I went over to the money. Just as I suspected: $5 in ones.
An hour later I spotted him coming over toward the courts again. I was prepared to either listen to a weird story or endure some sort of yelling for stealing his money. Instead, I was treated to a hail of 4 old tennis balls he had picked up elsewhere and lobbed onto our court.
On the way home, I stopped by CVS and bought a gallon of milk with a homeless man's money.
On the way out of CVS, a homeless man asked me for change and I gave him another homeless man's change.
It's a weird world out there, folks.