Got a dollar for some petrol?

I have an idea. Perhaps we should all buy exactly $1 of petrol and carry it around with us in a hip flask or something. When somebody next asks the question – Hey Presto! As if by magic! $1 of petrol!
All that remains to be asked is if they’d like it poured over their head, preferably with a match to go with it.

There is a website you should refer these people to.

WWW>GETFUC$%D.COM>AU

I smoke Pj’s.

50c is not worth 1 smoke

Last time i looked at Winnie Blues in my liquor store it was $9.50 for a pack of 20.

I was in Collingwood, Melbourne a few years back and I was approached by this middle aged lady wearing too much make-up, a short skirt and a low-cut blouse that revealed alot of what I didn’t want to see. She asked to buy a smoke off me for 50c, I said ‘no, I’ll just give you one’, but she shoved the 50c in my hand anyway and then proceeded to go on this long story about having kids taken away from her, being stabbed, something about guns then a whole bunch of other stuff I couldn’t really follow because I was pissed. It sounded like the usual sob story, but I was confused as to why she was telling me this as she wasn’t really asking for anything (50c is not worth 1 smoke). I nodded sadly, gave her a couple and left before she tried to give the other ones back.

I got the number painted on our driveway too. I prefer that they doorknock and try to do something useful rather than begging in civic.

“I just open my wallet and show them the wad of green hundreds and say sorry don’t have any small change lol”

Love it!

The curb number guys don’t come to our house, but if they did I might point them to the house several doors down where bogans live, and pay the guy a hundred bucks to paint “DICKHEADS LIVE HERE” on their curb. Worth every cent.

I just open my wallet and show them the wad of green hundreds and say sorry don’t have any small change lol

Also any one notice the Indians walking around the suburbs lately trying to flog Optus broadband?

Put them in potholes and tar them. Asphalt can be expensive.

@Danman – agreed…
Let’s just treat everyone as a criminal. Life is better that way…
;o)

or tar them all with teh same brush
or whatever

A guy offering to paint a curb number did my address for me.

Told him to go right ahead while I was gardening my front yard.

He never got close to my house and the job took him about 2 minutes and was of a reasonable quality.

I gave him his pre negotiated $8 and he went on his way. A year later my house remains secure and the number – blue numbers on white background remains bright clear and luminescent @ night.

Guess not all of them are cons.

But hay lets put all our eggs in one basket.

@specialG “The guys who tell you they are painting street numbers on curbs are generally casing houses to break into.”

interesting comment… had a similar guy on my doorstop recently but I sent him on his way. However I did note that a few people in the street are now sporting house numbers.

@Stung – when do you decide who you give a couple of bucks to and who you don’t? Or do you just give to everyone?

who is for some big game hunting? Release them into bushland on Mt Ainslie and hunt them on horseback with a pack of hounds. Could be good for tourism too.

just give em a couple of bucks you cheapskates

perhaps random tazering? or Hard Target-esque tourism push?

I also used to be sympathetic and give out a dollar or two whenever asked. Working in Civic has totally cured me of that now. You get asked by several people very day – many of them the same ones.

I sometimes give a sandwich to the ones that just sit there with a sign, but I hardly ever give out money anymore.

I do have a careful look at youngish women, to see if maybe they are genuinely stranded in civic, but if they look druggy I just keep walking.

With an inverted pork pie hat in front of them.

If they dance a jig whilst in stock thats worth paying.

Stocks.

So no one liked my ‘lock em up for the rest of the day’ concept???

Assumption a little sanctimonious there Queenie: the reality is that when you work in Civic you quickly learn to spot and avoid all of these dregs.

But I am exactly the sort of person who will stop to help someone in need, and have had the odd serious situation in/around Civic while stopping one of the pimps beating up one of his women. The tyre iron you mention would be a useful tool to have on hand when undertaking the simple but surprisingly dangerous act of walking from carpark to office in Civic at 8.30 in the morning.

The guys who tell you they are painting street numbers on curbs are generally casing houses to break into.

I have heard of the beggars doing it as opposed to crime – gets enough money for their heroin for the day.

If someone needs the cash for food or the like they can attend centrelink and be given food vouchers.

Don’t give them cash you are only feeding the parasites.

You think this is bad try being a westerner in mumbai. The pregnant beggers come up to you with a baby on their hip and do a simple hand to mouth action asking for money for food – as I can not speak hindi. They follow you like there is an invisible umbilicus – plenty of times our friend had to abuse them in hindi to tell them to piss off.

There was one time though when I was at an Indian market in Goa that I purchased a new “delivery bag” the type that you sling over a shoulder like a lap top bag. I was carrying it around empty and I got approached by a poor lady begger so I moved everything from my old bag to my new bag and gave her my old bag.

She looked at me weird and took the bag after a bit of prompting (language barrier) but I saw her begging later that day with the bag on her shoulder so I was happy that it was getting more use.

The worst experience for me was back in High School. Was on a school trip and was in Alice Springs for a day. This woman followed me and a friend around for a good 20 minutes, just hanging behind us. She then approached us and told us this story about needing money for her baby as she couldn’t raise it. We gave her $5 in the end, she kept begging for more. She walked off and talked to this guy I am guessing she knew and he stared at us. We just ran back to the bus, I have never felt quite that way ever again.

Also, I have had at least a couple of people in civic ask me for money for the bus… Did I miss the memo when it said that bus tickets weren’t allowed anymore. They certainly don’t seem that interested.

Theres one in particular i hate the most. The guy what wears the business pants / white shirt.. white hair.. He always asks for money.. for lunch food whatever. A mate of mine gave him money once and then he took it and then went in to play kino.
Hes a regular in civic. i see him more than some of the ppl i work with.

I was kinda shocked to see him in our shop one day bitching we didnt have the same black pants as he was wearing, he wanted them exactly the same, and couldn’t understand we only had the ones on show. Ended up making one of our staff really upset.

days after he was back to begging

When I first moved to Canberra, someone asked me for $1 for the bus, so I gave them $2, and they gave me 50 cents back….. it turns out they were telling the truth. It gave me a slightly unrealistic perspective on people asking for bus money, as I later discovered.

I kind of like the street number painting guys, at least they’re doing a service.

I also got a rapping beggar on Hollywood Blvd we bought his CD for $5. It didn’t make it home that night but i’m pretty sure when I looked at the back the CD looked blank.

I’m one of those people who generally give money or when I was a smoker, cigarettes to ppl who ask. But I have never found that I really notice the difference in the end. But I don’t work in the city so I guess I don’t get asked that much.
Still tho – you never know when you might need the generosity of a stranger.
I by no means think that every story is true but I guess I can’t help but think I’d rather be asked for money and hand over a few bucks than be pushed over and have my wallet stolen.

In all seriousness, there needs to be a law prohibiting ‘active’ begging. If someone wants to spend their days sitting outside a shop with a sign reading “Homeless, please help” etc, that’s all well and good, but approaching strangers is a different matter. I take issue with a fit 20something blocking the path of seniors, the under-developed or school kids and saying bluntly that they need $X. It almost amounts to demanding money with menaces.
A simple penalty say, 24 hours in the sin-bin should deter these parasites.

Brazil used to have a very effective way of ridding the city of beggers and vagrants…

Just shows how people can’t be trusted.

Now that was the sort of comment I was expecting, Al! There’s a large difference between “almost” and actually falling for them. But I think if someone’s genuinely in need of help that I can give, I’ll give it. You must be the sort of person who won’t stop on the side of the road and get your tyre iron out for someone with a flat, eh?

A few weeks back I had a guy come to my door offering to spray paint my house number on the street. He started going on about him being a single dad, how he used to be a roof tiler but hurt his back and he needed to send his kids to school and so on… I trully didnt have any cash on me at home at the time so I couldnt get it done. However this guy was quite persistant and kept saying, “we can always do it and we can come back to get the money off you later.” I asked him , who he was referring to as ‘we’ as he was by him self? Then he said, “oh the guy who actually does the spray painting..”

I then proceeded to tell him no thanks and was quite upset with him for telling me his whole sob story, when he wasnt even the one doing the bloody work.

Afterwards I thought that he would get much more success if he was just honest and said, we spray it for 10 bucks, you want in? rather than telling me this whole story…

So what you are telling us is that you are still (almost) falling for these cons?
But go ahead – support their need for ciggies, goon and smack.
More often than not, there’s a ‘wrangler’ nearby managing the coordinated the begging.

maybe they need to wear mumble pants thumper?

Wow, I was expecting all the pubes to call me stingy 😀 I was genuinely willing to help by calling someone for him, but to get lied to like that and then see it happening again just really annoyed me.

The first time I came to Canberra when I was a young’un I was waiting at the Civic bus interchange and a young indigenous girl came up to me and said she needed some money for the bus. I gave her $2, thinking it would be enough. She said, “No, that’s not enough, I need $4.” So I gave her another $2. Then she asked for more, and I said no. She then argued with poor young me until my bus came!

please insert the word ‘next between the words the & time.
freaking moo brew

May I suggest the time this man does ask you for a buck, you ask him if he accepts mastercard?

It’s been a while but i clearly recall the last time i was stopped for money. A guy just sitting on the near Petrie Plaza was asking everyone who passed if they had any money to spare. When he got to me I replied “If i had any money to spare, i wouldnt have to work for a living”.

IMO anyone who has time to sit around asking others for cash has time to learn a skill or do something to contribute to society in a more meaningful way.

Use this as an opportunity to steal his dignity – tell him to pull down his pants, hop on one leg and howl like a dog, and then you’ll give him a dollar. Take a vid and post the link here.

Once had a kid ask me for bus money so I offered him my bus ticket which still had a decent amount of transfer time left on it.

Funnily enough he didn’t really want the bus ticket and instead hung out with me while I waited for my lift and told me about how he’d just stolen a motor bike and outrun the cops.

I feel sorry for people who genuinely need the money but will be turned down because of all the scam ‘artists’.

Maybe next time he comes up to you, tell him he has a reputation, his story is bogus and maybe he should find some support to make his own money.

Or make him do a rap.

I remember getting hassled by a chick in Garema Place once for money for something or other, and I told her I had no money on me (I was on my way to the ATM). On the way back from the ATM 2 minutes later the same chick stops me again, but this time tells a DIFFERENT story about why she needs money. I simply responded with “it’s better than the story you gave me 3 minutes ago when I said no, but maybe if you included some vampires you’ll get some takers”. She looked at me like she was about to mouth off, but then turned on her heel and walked off.

A begger in Hawaii heard my wife and I talking and knew we were out of towners – so he said he would do us a eminem style rap and if we liked it we could pay him and if we did not we did not have to pay him. He spun the usual moved from the mainland to start a new life and get away from negative influences. His rap was half decent – flowed and told a good story of (i am assuming) his life. Was ok so we gave him US$2.

Maybe if someone comes to me to beg here Ill ask them to do a rap for me and see what happens 🙂

I was asked by a dodgy guy who had his ‘wife’ with him for petrol money a few weeks ago…

Who has money to drive to Civic and run a car, but then magically have no money at all, even credit, to get home….

Maybe the same guy I meet one night. Asked me for money while I was one the phone, told him so and he said “don’t matter I’ll wait”.

You get this all the time in America. People always approach you in the street for money.

Gotta give him credit for being creative with his story!

It takes a long time to fill a tank a dollar at a time.