Beware downtown scammers!
So I was walking home from downtown today after work, and some guy approaches me with some bullshit story about how his mother has suddenly fallen ill in the hospital and he has no money for gas, so won't I go with him to help him get gas? (not sure what the sick mother had to do with gas money....)
I mean, it was such an obvious, textbook grift. The way he held out his little notepad scrawled with random phone numbers and tourist map to distract my attention, as well as his mannerisms just seemed rehearsed and fake.
How can I be so sure it was a scam, you ask? Well, it's because I was approached by the EXACT SAME GUY trying to feed me the EXACT SAME STORY about a month ago. If I see him again, I'm posing a picture here. He was a nerdy looking white guy with short light brown hair and glasses (I know, that doesn't exactly narrow it down here). But, if I ever come across him again, I'm taking a pic and posting it all over the internet.
So by all means, make a tax-deductible donation to a reputable charity organization, but for the love of god do everyone a favor and don't give anything to people on the street. Doing so only supports drug-related crimes and makes the city more unsafe and scummy for the rest of us.