13 February 2008

Got a dollar for some petrol?

| Queenie
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So one afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was waiting in Civic to be picked up after work when this guy came up to me looking distressed. He said he was from Sydney and his boss’ car had run out of petrol, so he’d been sent to ask for help. I said I was sorry but I didn’t have my phone on me to call anyone for him, and he looked at me oddly for a moment. Then he asked me for a couple of dollars for petrol, and I realised he wasn’t as regular a guy as he seemed and flatly told him no. He then moved on to the next closest person and asked them.

And then Tuesday evening I was on my way through Garema Place with a few friends and, surprise surprise, there was the same guy repeating the same story word for word to two people at an ATM. So much for him being from Sydney! He didn’t look financially disadvantaged in the slightest. He was wearing clean, fashionable clothes – long camo shorts and a light-coloured T-shirt, admittedly the same clothes he wore when he tried his story on me – and was about 25 years old with short dark hair and a normal slim build. If this guy comes up to you, don’t listen to him because he’s a liar preying on people’s goodwill.

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el ......VNBerlinaV83:17 pm 16 Feb 08

Be careful walking through there at poorly lit times of the day, Bundah_Bloke.

Bundah_Bloke2:53 pm 16 Feb 08

Last year on the walking path next to the Electric Shadows bookshop there was a young girl approaching men asking if they’d pay for sex. When she asked me I was so shocked I almost tripped up.

There’s another guy with long white wiry hair that pushes a shopping trolley along who occasionally begs too. Always wondered what he has in that trolley.

Also related to this topic I’ve noticed more and more people sleeping overnight in Glebe park as I walk across it every day early in the morning on my way to work.

Deadmandrinking5:26 pm 14 Feb 08

I don’t care if she was. I’m not touching that pussy. Something would bite.

I’ve been known to hand over some coinage when I’m in a sympathetic mood and if the person seems to my completely subjective judgement to be hard up. I usually used to give a couple of coins to that girl who’d approach people in Garema and ask if she could sing a song for some change (although I would tell her not to worry about the song, and now find myself wondering what she actually sang).

Even the pro beggars I can take in stride most of the time, just shake my head and “can’t help you” and off I go. But that old east European guy – “scuzemesah? You help me with two dollars?” – really gets on my nerves for some reason. Might be the really blatant way that he ambles about looking like he’s taking the air, then speeds up almost to jogging pace so that his path can just happen to cross yours.

At one point I was getting collared by him practically every day, twice a day in some cases. I took to staring at him as soon as he tried to make eye contact and saying “I’m not giving you money” before he could say anything, and that seemed to annoy him enough that he started avoiding me.

Deadmandrinking11:54 pm 13 Feb 08

I have very little reservations about giving away smokes, unless, of course, I’m running out. Hell, I’ve been at stages where I’ve had no smokes and no cash to buy some. Wish I’d had the guts to ask someone for one myself.

speaking of beggers, there’s this old guy who wanders around civic especially as people go home from work, asking for $5 to buy himself some dinner.
…if you’re talking the European dude (German? Austrian?) who always starts with “…’scuse me, sir” then yes, he does p1ss it all away at the TAB. I used to regularly see him begging at lunch time, in at the TAB till 5 or so, and then out begging again.

bd84 – does the said old man open with ‘excuse me sir?’

never give them a cent, don’t take you’re wallet out, they’re just as likely to grab it an run.

I suppose almost a litre of petrol would be enough to keep them high for a couple of hours.. or the drugs to which it eventually goes.

speaking of beggers, there’s this old guy who wanders around civic especially as people go home from work, asking for $5 to buy himself some dinner. Well dressed (in old fella style) and clean.. rumour has it is that he uses it for gambling, could be semi genuine though.

That’s bloody excellent Danman!
I think we need a little something for our friends who ask for the “spare” cigarette though.
I propose a fake box of cigarettes. Open the lid in the general direction of the annoyance’s face, upon which a giant boxing glove (on an industrial strength spring of course) shoots out knocking 12 shades of shite out the hapless twat!

LOL big Dave – maybe give them a cup with a string connected to it too so it sits at nose level with said petrol within olfactory sniffing distance.

That way they can put it on and you can dole it out from your hip flask 🙂

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

Deadmandrinking6:57 pm 13 Feb 08

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.

Deadmandrinking5:59 pm 13 Feb 08

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?

neanderthalsis2:28 pm 13 Feb 08

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.

Mike Crowther1:18 pm 13 Feb 08

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

Gungahlin Al1:01 pm 13 Feb 08

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.

Mike Crowther10:56 am 13 Feb 08

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.

neanderthalsis10:29 am 13 Feb 08

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…

Gungahlin Al10:11 am 13 Feb 08

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.

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