aha!

Back when I worked at the LGBT Center, in the mid-90s, I had someone knock urgently at the front door one night, as I was locking up. Not so unusual, although his story was: he said that he worked for RSA/USA (Ridley Scott's production company for commercials); he'd locked himself out of his apartment, and he urgently needed to get uptown with several large garment bags; was there any way I could lend him money for a taxi? He'd give me the RSA number so that we could arrange for him to pay me back... I agreed, and later found myself calling a disconnected number; the next day, I found myself talking to an apologetic receptionist at RSA who said that yes, this guy had been running this scam on several other people. I hung up angry; I rarely give money to individuals on the street anymore (as opposed to organizations such as United Homeless), and that's one of the reasons why.

Last night, I'm walking home from work, and a guy comes up to me on the street, sounding apologetic and desperate; he also sounds somehow familiar. Naah- couldn't be. Suddenly, he was telling me how he'd locked himself out of his apartment, and he needed to get uptown with-

I couldn't resist. "With garment bags? Four of them?"

Him: (uncertainly) "Yeah..."

Me: (pleasantly) "This is a pretty clever story, but you've been using it for about thirteen years now. Why don't you give it a rest?"

Him: *mutters something about it having been a long time, as he backs away*

The look in his eyes wasn't quite as satisfactory as getting my twenty bucks back would have been- but it'll do.