The Beggar and the Well-dressed Woman

At a red light the only thing to do is look around and observe the people rushing around at 6:30, rather early to be on the way to work, but that´s what you need to do if you want to beat the traffic and get a good parking spot at work.

As I look to the left, I see a homeless man get up from under the shelter that belongs to a bank. Apparently, he had spent the night there to protect himself from the rain and cold. He wore a torn t-shirt and shorts and you could see the dirt that had poured down his legs from the previous night rain. On his feet he wore flip-flops. He didn´t look cold although I thought he would be because the temperature was low. Perhaps his body had already adapted to the condition he was living in. To me he looked rather content.

He got up, walked over to the street corner. He was carrying a plastic bag. Though I couldn´t see the content in the bag, I figured it was trash because he stopped at the bin connected to the light post and dropped the bag in.

After having done this, he noticed that the pedestrian light was still green, so he crossed the street with a proud grin on his face. I so happened to catch my smile broaden up too. How proud I felt of that stranger.

While he was crossing, a woman wearing high heels and dressed in a fancy businesswoman type of outfit almost crashed into him. With one hand she was blowing her nose and with the other she was holding on to her cell phone. Cordially the man saw that her eyes were attached to the phone and didn´t see that he was walking in the opposite direction. To avoid the collision, he cordially stepped aside as she dashed by him.

To my bewilderment, when she reached the sidewalk, instead of discarding the tissue paper into to the garbage pail that was right next to her, she simply threw it on the ground. I couldn´t believe my eyes. All she had to do was stretch her arm and toss the tissue into the trash can. She didn´t even need to stop to do that.

The light turned green and off I went. Deep down inside I wanted to step out of the car, pick up the tissue, run after the lady and say “ Excuse me Miss, you dropped something.”

(Written: September 5, 2019 )

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