It's Good To Help...

Okay, the following story is gonna sound a bit like an email that might get forwarded to you by a religious friend or relative. You know, they kind with little pics of cartoon children praying and flashing crosses and EXTREMELY feminine flying dove GIFs and stuff.

But I'm not trying to convert you to anything, and I'm not trying to sell you anything, and I am SO NOT going to tell you to forward this to 10 people to get a miracle, or curse you with misfortune if you don't!!! (I fuckin' HATE that shit!!! I halfway believe that the reason I'm not rich and famous yet is because I INSIST -- on principle -- on breaking those cursed chains! If the story is good enough to forward, I'll usually go out of my way to copy and paste and take out that evil addendum at the end!)

Anyway, blah...

So I noticed, during one of my smoke breaks at work tonight, that my back driver-side tire looked almost flat. Over the course of a 10-hour shift, it didn't flaten all the way, so I guessed it was merely low. Probably leaking a little.

So after work I drove to the nearest gas station that sells air (what an obscene concept, right) and filled the tire up.

When I was almost through, this little dude comes up to me and tells me he needs help. He's 47 and he's embarrassed and he explains to me that he has the HIV virus and lung cancer and he lives in Georgetown (northeast of where Brian and I live, but still pretty much part of the Austin area) in the country and he just got out of the hospital and he is staying with a friend of his who lives not far away but has gone to work, and his friend works in San Marcus, and it's a long way for him to get home.

Finally, I'm done airing-up my tire and I ask what kind of help he needs.

Well, he needs some money to get gas for his truck. He says something about $8, which at the time I heard as $8 will fill his truck up. And he's talking in this stream of consciousness, words and ideas that just keep going. His voice sounds like it could break into tears, but never does.

I've already made up my mind, though.

I've only got $4 in my wallet (I had $5 but I needed to convert $1 into quarters to pay for the $o.75 air). Across the street is a branch of my bank that has an outdoor ATM. I tell him to meet me over there and I'll help him out.

This is downtown Austin, right at the Drag, but luckily the traffic is abnormally light (even for 6:00 am) so getting to the ATM is surprisingly hassle-free.

I ask what will help.

He says $30 will fill up his truck, but he's diabetic and needs to eat.

I give him $40 and wish him luck.

Now the reason I point out all the details in his story is because if you know a little bit about scam artists, you know that they often throw a lot of details at you. The best lies, of course, tread a very subtle line of details... Enough to create a world in the mind of the Mark, but not so much as to give away the lie. (I know this fact well... I'm a writer.) I also know that a constant barrage of speech bogs the human mind down and makes it more susceptible to what people like Criss Angel and Derren Brown call "suggestion".

So in all honesty, there's about a 50/50 chance I was being conned.

But my mom said something to me not long ago that made me think: If someone asks for help (i.e. money) whether we help or not is on our conscious, and what they do with what we give them is on theirs.

I believe we're all on a journey through this thing we call Life. The choices we make affect us personally, and in some great or small way affect the journey. So when someone asks for help, how we respond affects our journey, and what they do with whatever we give them to help them affects their journey.

So in my mind, helping this cat or not helping him is what's important to the outcome of my personal journey.

As I said, he displayed enough signs that he could very possibly be scamming me. So I could choose to not help him, and feel no guilt whatsoever. (I'm blessed that way.)

However...

I've been in bad situations before. Unbelievable circumstances that I could ever put into a screenplay because no audience on Earth would buy it. In some cases I received help, in some cases I had to sell my glorious and vast collection of dvds for rent money, lol. Or loose a storage shed full of a lifetime of collected memories. (I used to have a play program for CAMELOT signed by Robert Goulet. He played King Arthur in the touring production I saw, but he became famous in the '60s for playing Lancelot on Broadway. For a Theatre-geek -- and King Arthur fan -- like myself, this is HUGE! But it went away when I couldn't pay for my storage anymore last summer.)

The point is that I had about a 50/50 chance this guy was on the level, and needed help. Help that I was willing to give him, and that someone else might not be willing to give him.

Only, that's NOT the point of my story.

Look, if I were an evangelist and I were trying to convert you to something, it would be CELEBRATION. I celebrate frickin' EVERYTHING I can think to! My Gan-gan recovers from a 2-week stay in Intensive Care, I celebrate that. KISS releases a 4-disc dvd box set of footage I've been wanting to watch for 21 years, I celebrate THAT, too. I am able to hold onto THE GREATEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD for a year, I celebrate that! On of my oldest and best friends introduces me to TRANSFORMERS: THE GAME, I celebrate that, too.

So here's my epiphany in this situation: I have been blessed with enough money (at this moment) to buy what I need, buy some of the things that I want AND give a dude who may or may not be in dire straights a little bit of a break.

I'm writing this because sometimes we don't think about WHAT WE HAVE. My dearest eternal Love is going to lose her job sometime in the very near future. I've got a dental bill coming up that may take all I have in the bank. But I celebrate the fact that if this man, who may genuinely have been an innocent victim of God's ineffable whim, had not stumbled across ME this morning he might not have gotten $40 tonight! ("This morning"... whenever.)

The point, for me, is that fact that I was ABLE to help!!!

I'm not always able to.

There have been PLENTY of homeless folks that I've passed, eyes straight ahead, because all I have in my wallet are business cards and lint.

But tonight/this morning I actually had tons of cool entertainment at home AND a few extra bucks in my bank account.

So if you have a few extra dollars at your disposal, CELEBRATE!

I'm not saying go out an find a homeless person to give that money to. It's such an if-y situation to determine who is truly needy and who is just scamming you because they don't want to work a real job! I'm saying that if you have a few extra bucks in your bank account, CELEBRATE THIS!!!

Be joyous and dance and sing and drink because YOU ARE OKAY!!!

Gene Simmons wrote a book about acquiring wealth, and he begins the book by saying that if you have a place to sleep and food to eat, you are surviving. You HAVE SUCCEEDED. YOU ARE A SUCCESS! If you have $5 more than you need to pay this month's bills, you are MORE than successful! You are BLESSED!

I may have given $40 to a con man, OR I may have helped out a cat who was in a strange and scary situation.

Either way, I am blessed enough to BE ABLE to help!

And for that, I am deeply grateful!

Peace and Good Fortune to anyone reading this!!!

:D