Panhandled by Little Jack Melody

Someone tried to panhandle me and my friend boB yesterday.

Note to Dallas/Denton old-timers: the panhandler vaguely resembled an aged version of Little Jack Melody.

We'd gone out to dinner; boB's in town from Minnesota so I was dropping him off back at his hotel, which is in an area Northeast of Dallas where there are a lot of tech companies. It's a nice area.

The guy came up, gave us some line about his car broken down on the highway and he needed $120 for the tow, but he only had $92 on him and could we loan him the rest?

I just said "Sorry. No, sir." He walked away quickly, around the corner of the hotel...toward where there was very little chance of him running into any people.

So I went back to my conversation as the guy walked away but as soon as he was gone, I told boB to go to the hotel desk and report the guy.

Later, boB called and said the desk clerk said they've had a problem with the guy for about a month. I'd heard similar things from people who have been hit up for money in restaurant parking lots nearby.

Anyway, boB wondered how I knew he wasn't genuine. Hmmm. Here's a list.

1) The afore mentioned, my friend had something similar happen to her recently.

2) The guy watched us for a while before he approached us. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and made a note, simply because my car was unlocked, even though it was very close by.

3) He was wearing very thick glasses--bifocals, in fact--but he wasn't looking through them. He was looking over them. And he never met my eyes while talking, nor boB's.

4) He didn't look at all like he'd just been stranded on the freeway.

5) His clothes were very neat and clean, but very cheap.

6) When the guy walked away, he walked around the corner of the hotel, in a direction where there would be no pay phones, no people, and no open businesses.

7) No way in hell did this guy ever carry $92 in cash.

Bob argued with the last bit. "Well, I've got that much right now. Why wouldn't he?"

Because...people don't carry cash any more, unless they have no credit and no checking account, and if they don't have those two things, they either a) have a lot of cash or b) they have zero cash.

Well, I'll amend that. People do still carry cash. I've been doing it lately, but only because I returned something to a store and received cash instead of credit back on my card that I'd charged it on. I usually carry more cash when I'm "Out of town," on vacation or work or whatever. Like boB is, currently.

But this last month it felt really weird. Having cash.

So this guy just wouldn't have had it. I have no justification for that feeling, but he just reminded me of the people I knew in Cement City (tell you about that another time) when I lived there. They wouldn't be carrying that much.

So I knew the guy was a fraud. Not that I would have helped him either way because in the end:

I didn't have any cash on me.