Choice

Someone asked me for money again.  She said she'd been panhandling for years.  Loved living on the street.  She felt free.  She was much older than I am, and clearly wasn’t suffering for food.  She said that people just gave her money, and that she’d talked men into taking her to Hawaii, the Bahamas and Bermuda.  I enjoyed talking to her.  She was positive and friendly, but she wanted my money.  I asked her for advice.  She told me to be nice to people, be nice to myself, and to get a girlfriend if I didn’t already have one.  I said I had traveled instead, and that’s when she told me about her tropical paradises, where she had also panhandled.  I asked her if she did any work for anyone.  She said she just asked for money.  I don’t know her whole life or how happy she makes other people, but I didn’t have any coins, and a pyramid picture would better serve someone else.  I wasn’t withholding from someone in need.  I just decided that I was going to give it to a human who could really use a chance to love life.