I had an extra few minutes on my way to see the doctor, so I stopped into my local Starbucks. I wanted to tip the nice art students behind the counter, but I had no cash and so had to pay with credit. I noticed that the tips already in the jar were pretty sad. There was maybe about 85 cents in there at 9:30am on a Saturday. Imagine a couple of poor idealistic young art students having to wake up this early on a Saturday morning just to split 85 cents. As I sat down in the front window, i felt satisfied that other customers would surely pick up the slack for me.
Out on the front corner there was the inevitable bum selling copies of Streetwise. The first thing I noticed was a couple of douchebags in bike-racing tights walk out and hand this guy their change. I thought to myself, “I can’t believe they gave their change to that guy instead of the nice barristas.”
Then I saw the seventeen year old girl with the adult-sized teeth in the child-sized face do the same thing. And the crazy old lady who wore her fur coat into the store while her massive rotweiler thrashed and shivered on the sidewalk in the cold. All these idiots were saving their change for the worthless old alcoholic out front. Practically stealing it right from the mouth of the next goddamn Pablo Picasso.
And then the clincher: the streetwise bum comes in off the street for a goddamn coffee break, and a chance to charge his cellphone.
It reminds me of an old American Indian tale. A village elder tells his grandson, “There are wolves in my heart. Two of them. And there is only room for one. They are at war. One is bitter, callous, cynical, manipulative; and the other is pure, honest, optimistic, naive.”
“Which one will win, grandfather?”
“Whichever one I feed.”
You see, there is a basic rule of human-animal interactions: whatever you feed, will breed. In other words, you should only feed something if you wish there were more like it.
If you would like to see more streetwise bums this Christmas season, then go ahead and give your money to a streetwise bum. If you want more goddamn bell-ringers, then give your money to a bell-ringer.
But I challenge you to take a different approach in this season of giving. A more strategic approach. Save whatever money is in your pocket when some human parasite tries to capitalize on your guilt, and instead give the money to the next person you see who you wish you could trade that bum or bell-ringer in for. Maybe it’s a student, a teacher, a secretary. Maybe it’s even a doctor or a lawyer, a nurse or a clergyman, a stripper or a street performer.
Whatever you feed will breed, my friends, so this Christmas don’t feed anything you wouldn’t want coming home with you for dinner.
A message from the Godotian Sainthood. Please fax this.
