“Excuse me,” the young woman said. I looked up and saw a husky, young girl with long red hair standing in front of me, holding her wallet.
I was at the gas station, out in the cold, trying to get the card reader in the pump to work.
So I was already aggravated. And then she launched into the spiel.
“I’ve run out of gas,” she said. “I wonder if you have just a few dollars so I can get home.”
That’s been happening to me a lot lately. A couple weeks ago, a man at the outlet mall walked up to me as I was getting in my car and did the same thing. It happened again last weekend on the thruway.
I am getting cranky about all these “gasless” people. Because if they aren’t really out of gas, then they are using human kindness as a way to rip people off. As such, they may be decreasing the already-fragile kindness level on the planet. I hate that.
So the redhead at the pumps got a lecture from me.
“You know,” I said, chilled to the bone, still struggling with the machine and, now, really cranky. “I’m sorry if you are really out of gas, but lately there seem to be a lot of scammers around here pretending to be out of gas just to get people to give them money.”
For some reason, I felt a need to explain this all to her. “So that is why I am looking at you like this,” I said, pointing to my face, which was scrunched up with disapproval. “But since I can’t be sure, I’m going to help you anyway.”
The girl just stared at me, rather dumbfounded. As you can imagine.
I went inside and told the cashier to charge $2 on my debit card so the girl could put gas in her tank.
But guess who I think behaved badly in that exchange? Me, of course. Really, give or don’t give. Lecture or don’t lecture. But don’t let the chance of being scammed keep you from caring about fellow humans.
So, yeah, you gasless people in the parking lots. Look for me. I’m sure to give you a dollar or two. But you may just have to stand and listen to a really cantankerous lecture. You decide.
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