Those who know me also know about my bad habit of striking up conversations with random people I happen to meet, who 9 times out of 10 always turn out to be completely batty or go ape shit crazy on me. Many have said that this is a serious problem, much like alcoholism and sex addiction, which are totally legitimate diseases by the way despite what normal people may tell you. This weekend I again succumbed to my disease by falling into a long conversation with a woman I met in a coffee shop. She was super nice and super polite and after 5 minutes into the conversation I found her really irritating.
Looking every inch the flower child, she had embraced bohemianism back in the 70s and never looked back. She loved everybody – or at least she tried her best to love everybody. This woman, we’ll call her Sheila, apparently also loved giving her money away to charities and homeless people, leaving her with “just enough to live on”. When asked how she survives with little money – cuz I certainly can’t – Sheila replied that she was a fighter*gag*She also encouraged me to give money to homeless people because in her mind it does a lot of good for the soul.
Without meaning to offend her, I told her very politely that I don’t live by that same philosophy and in fact refuse to give pan handlers any money because there was no point it if most of them just spent it on cigarettes, drugs, and booze/Listerine. Does this make me an evil person? Well, to Sheila it meant that I am a serial killer who loves drowning cute little kittens and give poisoned apples to children. She didn’t really say all this out loud but her look did. She subsequently went on a high-pitched tirade about why my outlook is the product of the selfish generation, of which I am apparently a member.
I honestly didn’t mean to put a pin in her helium balloon full of sunshine and rainbows but what can one do when a hippie shoves mad hard altruism down your throat and makes you feel like Osama Bin Laden just because you don’t like people. I didn’t know what else to say after her long soap-box speech except politely excuse myself and get the fuck out of there as fast as I can with my tail tucked between my legs.
Sheila The Hippie, if you are out there somewhere in the blogosphere and you’ve run into this little confession, please know that you were right to chastise me for not giving my hard-earned money to homeless people. If our little tete-a-tete has taught me anything it’s that instead of wasting whatever money left over from paying rent and bills, I now put it all in my TFSA because God help me but I do not want to end up like you.
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