When I first started working downtown and had to take the Blue line from Seward I gave change to more people than I should have. Bought some food and an extra tall hot chocolate with all the fixings for a guy who was sitting out in the cold on Nicollet mall. Didn't even get a look in the eyes and a thanks a few other times when I stopped to help someone out, which was shitty.

Ran into a guy once at Warehouse station who seemed destitute and said he needed money for a day ticket to get out to the suburbs or something... whatever, it was six dollars and it made me feel good so I bought him one. Ran into him again at Nicollet station a week later and he asked me the same thing. I was like "dude, I bought you a day ticket last week" and he just kind of glazed over and kept walking.

Then ran into some woman on my same route months apart with the same story about how she needed money to get to a shelter in Saint Paul. I just don't give money to strangers anymore. Fuck dude, it feels a little bit shitty to shut people down when you don't know for sure if they need help but I'm done getting played. When moving day arrived and it finally came time to leave Seward my roommate and I, tired and sore and taking a break next to the moving truck in the summer heat were approached by some random old man who came out of the alley bushes behind our shitty apartment building, buried his wrinkly hands into a dirty brown gas station grocery bag and presented us with two cold natty ices, only to disappear back into the ether as quick as he came. It was awesome, like some kind of beer Santa making the rounds with his sack of refreshments to the sweaty tired kids on moving day. The only time living around downtown where a stranger actually came up to me and was just like "here you go, you look like you could use this" instead of immediately asking me for shit.