Panhandle For My Blog

          

            A panhandler is defined as somebody that begs in a public space. This may come as a surprise, but people aren’t too fond of panhandlers. What people may not know is that there is a long-standing connection between religion and begging. In a much nicer sounding synonym, alms are given to others as a religious virtue. Nuns and monks have been living off of alms for centuries. In fact, this is how Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism lived.

            For seven years I was the Store Manager of a Blockbuster Video that sat at a busy intersection that was frequented by panhandlers. I had worked there long enough to be able to identify the regulars. During the summer I would let Mike and John come in and get a drink from our water fountain. They were always respectful, thankful and usually drunk. One day I walked outside to give them some expired chips that we were supposed to throw away. I found out that Mike was a true hobo. He travelled around the country by hopping on trains and hitchhiking. But John, on the other hand, owned a house larger than mine.  As it turns out, John was fired from his previous job. Directly in front of where he started to panhandle. He told me that because he didn’t have any taxes taken from him, he made more money on the corner.

            “AND…” he said as he turned to stare down the building of his old job, “I can drink while doing this.” Needless to say, I no longer gave him handouts.

            Panhandling was not my idea, but a suggestion from one of my employees; therefore I had several ideas on how I could do it. Initially, I thought that I should dress in my dirtiest, most raggedy clothes; truly looking the part. Then I thought that I should stand with my normal clothes. Then I thought that I should try both ways and compare. When I realized that it wasn’t really about making money for me, it was about my blog, I started to think of the whole thing as a unique way for me to advertise for ADAM DOES iT. I imagined myself standing on the corner handing out an entire box of 500 business cards. Would I take money if people gave it to me? Absolutely. This would just be money for a future activity. On the day, it was a mere 29 degrees outside. With the wind chill, it only felt like 19. I felt that I had dressed appropriately. I had two pairs of socks, a pair of both boxers and briefs, a pair of mesh shorts, some running pants and a pair of khakis. On my upper half, I had an undershirt, a tee shirt, a long sleeve shirt, a hooded sweatshirt and a coat. I also had a hat, gloves and several packages of hand warmers. I decided to skip the sunglasses because I didn’t want to look like the Unabomber. As I drove to the corner, I wondered if there would be somebody already standing there. If there was, that could be interesting, especially if they were crazy. I only had to let them have all the money that we collected; I had to make it clear that I solely wanted to hand out my card. When I got there, the corner was empty. To be honest, I was relieved.

            I parked my car and walked to the corner with the cardboard sign. When I got there, I held it up. As I was standing there, my cheeks started to hurt. This wasn’t because of the cold, but I couldn’t stop smiling. I watched as people chose to actively ignore me, as I probably would have done if I was in my car, or read the sign. Often, I watched people mouth the words of the sign and then start laughing. I felt like I was holding up the punch line to the world’s funniest offensive joke. There was a fair share of people that seemed disgusted that I was standing on the corner. Then there were plenty of people that laughed, smiled or waved at me.

            At one point, I was looking at the reflection of the sign off of the window of a minivan. I was trying to analyze if the writing was big enough to easily read from inside a vehicle. As the van started to pull away, a guy opened up the sliding back door and yelled at me.

            “You’re a complete faggot,” he said. I was blown away. What was I doing that was so offensive to this guy? And what did that have to do with my sexual orientation? Then I realized that this man probably didn’t fall under the demographic of people that would read my blog, anyways. I had played through scenarios where people offered me money and graciously took my business card. These were the everyday saints that believed in giving alms. I had never though about the flip side; the population that would yell obscenities, profanities or throw things.

             Although it was amusing seeing people’s reactions, it didn’t take me too long to shut down the outer world and started to internally write the blog entry.

            “I’ll have this already written by the time that I get home,” I was thinking to myself, when a car drove by that I recognized. The guy driving it was one of my employees from the Blockbuster days. I watched it pull into a parking lot down the street and I lost sight of him. A few minutes later, he and his wife pulled up and asked me if I had made any money. I told him no and handed him my business card. The light turned green and he pulled away before I could say anything else. I suspect that he saw me check into the corner on Facebook.

            The brevity of conversation made me realize the reality of handing out 500 business cards wasn’t very good. Then a complete stranger pulled up, handed a dollar bill to her teenage daughter to give me. I handed them my card as I said my thanks. I felt the rush of delusion. Maybe I would give away all of the business cards and make some money! Then it seemed like it stopped. Not the traffic, but people acknowledging me at all. I started to draw designs in the snow with my feet when I unearthed three pennies. I bent down to grab them and as I was standing up, another minivan pulled extra close to the curb. An older gentleman rolled down the passenger’s window and said,

            “That’s not good.” I took this as an invitation to talk to him. I pulled out a card from my pocket and started to hand it to him.

            “Here you go, sir,” I said.

            The man’s eyes bulged. “Get out of here,” he said. “I don’t want anything from you, you goddamn beggar.” He sped forward a few feet, almost hitting a car then slammed on his brakes. He kept his window down and kept yelling at me, but I could only understand a few words. There was no mistaking the tone. When the light turned green, the car sped away, its tires screeching. It seemed like the appropriate time to quit. As I was walking back to my car, I was bummed to end on a low note. And I had only made $1.03. When I got to my car, I heard somebody yell at me. I turned around to see a man leaning out of his truck window.

            “What did your sign say,” he asked. I told him. “I don’t have anything on me, but if you are here tomorrow, I will give you something then.” I didn’t bother telling him that it wasn’t about the money. I came to the realization that I am too happy to be a successful panhandler. People don’t really want to give money, if they don’t think that they are helping. But I did have fun. I think the fact that I wasn’t relying on the money made it a lot easier to slip into a hot tub at the gym after I was done and think about how the man in the truck was actually a perfect ending to the story.

Have you ever panhandled? Would you consider trying it? What is the most unusual thing that you've done for money?