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clarionite wrote:About 18 years ago I had just left an interview in Salt Lake City. I saw a well dressed pan handler on my side of the road. He was in his late 30's or early 40's I would have guessed. I stopped and talked to the guy, and offered to buy him lunch. He took me up on the offer, so we ate lunch at the Long John Silver's across the road. We sat and talked for 30 - 45 minutes. He said he was a teacher from Ireland who had taken a sabatacle and come to tour America. He'd been mugged, and they took all his money and his plane tickets. He'd had the tickets reissued, and had contacted family. They were sending him money, but it wouldn't be there till the next day. I gave him another $20 to get him by till the next day (the conversation was worth that) I was actually in a pretty bad situation myself at the time, and helping out someone else made me feel better. Sometimes the guy who's down on his luck really is down on his luck. The guy I helped wanted a mailing address to send my money back. I was temporarily without a mailing address ( my bad situation) and I told him not to worry about it, help somone else if he finds himself able to in the future.

Katygunnut wrote:Hindsight is 20/20, but given the situation, I might have been tempted to tell him that my wallet was in the house, then hustled myself and my family inside and called the police (while also taking the chance to arm myself).

I have been approached twice by aggressive pan handlers saying "give me $20" or something similar. One was outside a store, and the other came up to me as I was walking back to my car from an ATM. Fortunately in both cases I did not have kids with me, so I just said, "sorry, Man, I can't help you" and kept walking. Both times, they uttered a few choice words, but did not try to stop me from leaving.

The funny thing is that I usually do give $5 or $10 to the people I see at intersections who are asking for money. It's not the money that bothers me as much as the attempted intimidation.