It’s morning but still dark out. It’s also raining and cold. I’m walking out of the twenty-four-hour fitness center, on my way to the all-night Waffle House, when a woman hails me from her car. She has just run away from her husband, she says, and needs gas money to get to her mother’s.
Gas money now, is it? Who doesn’t need gas money to get to their mother’s these days? Probably drug money she’s really after. I hate being panhandled. But a softer voice inside me says, Hey, wake up. Here’s a human being in distress. This is an opportunity to be of help. It’s not your concern what she does with the money.
