![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
You just can't make this stuff up....
Nov. 13th, 2006 01:33 pmThe most bizarre thing happened Friday night.
I desperately needed an error in my rear driver-side tire, so I stopped at the nearest gas station, and parked in front of the air pump. It's one of those pumps that requires one of the attendants to turn it on, so I headed into the cashier to ask him to turn on. There was a middle-aged couple, who had clearly seen better times, sitting on the curb next to the air pump, who were panhandling. The man demanded spare change as I walked past, but I kept walking as though I hadn't heard him. (I have mixed feelings about handing money to people in this situation. I'll give them food, but somehow handing them cash feels like I'm enabling an addiction.).
The cashier at the gas station was Latino, and I asked him in Spanish as he would turn the air pump on. He told me it required a purchase (the owners rules), but I told him I was driving a diesel and they had no diesel fuel. He was kind enough to turn it on anyway. He was a little surprised to hear my Spanish, and this triggered a 10 minute conversation about my trip to Mexico, what was happening in his native Oaxaca, Mexican food locally, the finer points of queso Oaxaqueño, and where to find good mole locally. Like many Latinos, Jorge was surprised (pleasantly so) to find someone who looks and SO Anglo, but speaks decent Spanish.
In any event, the woman of the down and out couple outside, having scored some change, came into the kiosk while we were talking, got coffee & paid for it, then went back outside to her significant other. As I walked back to my car, I over heard her say to her boyfriend, "Dude! He wasn't ignoring you. He's Mexican and doesn't speak English. I heard him."
I thought about turning around and saying to them, "no, I really was ignoring you.", but decided rather to be kind, instead of embarrassing her completely.
I desperately needed an error in my rear driver-side tire, so I stopped at the nearest gas station, and parked in front of the air pump. It's one of those pumps that requires one of the attendants to turn it on, so I headed into the cashier to ask him to turn on. There was a middle-aged couple, who had clearly seen better times, sitting on the curb next to the air pump, who were panhandling. The man demanded spare change as I walked past, but I kept walking as though I hadn't heard him. (I have mixed feelings about handing money to people in this situation. I'll give them food, but somehow handing them cash feels like I'm enabling an addiction.).
The cashier at the gas station was Latino, and I asked him in Spanish as he would turn the air pump on. He told me it required a purchase (the owners rules), but I told him I was driving a diesel and they had no diesel fuel. He was kind enough to turn it on anyway. He was a little surprised to hear my Spanish, and this triggered a 10 minute conversation about my trip to Mexico, what was happening in his native Oaxaca, Mexican food locally, the finer points of queso Oaxaqueño, and where to find good mole locally. Like many Latinos, Jorge was surprised (pleasantly so) to find someone who looks and SO Anglo, but speaks decent Spanish.
In any event, the woman of the down and out couple outside, having scored some change, came into the kiosk while we were talking, got coffee & paid for it, then went back outside to her significant other. As I walked back to my car, I over heard her say to her boyfriend, "Dude! He wasn't ignoring you. He's Mexican and doesn't speak English. I heard him."
I thought about turning around and saying to them, "no, I really was ignoring you.", but decided rather to be kind, instead of embarrassing her completely.
