Gas Pains

The first thing I noticed when I got off of the interstate tonight was that gas had gone up six cents since I left for work. The second thing was a man sitting on the side of the road reading a newspaper. Well, that's what it looked like from my side of the bridge. When I got to his side, I saw that he was actually holding a sign that said "Need Gas. Please Help." I was tempted to roll down my window and point out that there were two gas stations less than a quarter of a mile away. But since I'm pretty sure he wasn't blind, he could probably already see that and that wasn't the type of help he was looking for. Which leads me to take the giant mental leap that he needed money.

Maybe if he had been a young woman with a couple of screaming kids and no shoes, I would have given him a dollar. And did he just happen to have a piece of poster board and a marker in the car with him? Was that part of his plan for getting wherever it was that he was headed; drive until I run out of gas and then beg? Sorry, but if that's the case he should have stayed home. Or is the rising cost of gas just the newest angle for panhandlers? I guess it's a great excuse for getting out of doing things you don't want to do; sorry, I can't go with you to visit your Great Aunt Rita in the nursing home, I'm out of gas.