A few years ago, I was walking on St. Paul Street in Mount Vernon after getting off the bus and a woman asked me if I would give her money to get home on the bus because she had just gotten out of Central Booking. It’s a typical Baltimore ask-for-money story. I said I didn’t have money for her but I did have a day pass for the bus that she could have.
Once I assured her that it would be good all day for as many bus rides as she needed, she was extremely grateful. She could have been putting on a show to save face, but she seemed genuinely happy to have it.
When I was living in Baltimore, I went back and forth a lot on how much I was willing to trust strangers. There were times when I was tired of assuming everything was a scam and just needed to take someone’s story at face value if my gut told me it might be true.
I know I lost some, but I know I wasn’t always wrong.
I was about to leave for school this afternoon when a teenage kid bangs on my door and offers to cut the grass in my backyard and rake and clean everything up. This same kid had knocked on my door on Saturday, but I didn’t have time to deal with him then.
He offers to do the job for $20. I had…
