Beggers & Choosers: A Parable of Sorts

Tonight, I rode the A train home from a party after midnight. Because I am poor, and because it would have gone to waste otherwise, I filled up a plastic bag full of food left over from the party before I left. I didn't think anything of this until I finally got on the A train and realized that I was inevitably sharing the car with several people whom I will simply term as "down on their luck" (though to varying degrees).

After a stop or two, one person finally approached me and asked for something to eat. I hesitated for a moment, remembering the time I tried to feed the ducks in the park when I was 6 and ended up running for my life while a flock of geese chased me down for the entire loaf of bread I was holding (they eventually surrounded me when I crawled on top of a picnic bench. I don't remember how I got out of it, just curling up in the middle of the bench and crying as the ducks bit my sneakers.) before I realized that I would look like a righteous douchebag if I pretended I didn't have anything to spare while a bag nearly bursting with food sat at my feet and I held a cheese plate in my hands.

(Also, in an uncharacteristically sincere vein, I have a genuinely deep compassion for people in need.
Let's never speak of this again.)

I gave the woman a soda and a bag of chips and then braced for the worst. And indeed, people seemed to perk up throughout the car once I realized I was handing out food. Some people stood up and began ambling towards me. I prepared for the worst, I prepared for people to start biting my sneakers again. But then it happened:

"Do you have any chips that aren't jalepeno flavored? And some soda that isn't diet?"

The swelling crowd paused once they saw the kind of food I had to offer. I spent a moment looking through my bag, actually looking to see if I had anything this bag lady would prefer. I guess I took a little too long because after a moment she handed my food back to me and said, "Thanks anyway." And then the crowd began to disperse as well. And I sat there, holding a bag brimming with food, perfectly willing to feed the hungry of New York City, while everyone on the subway ignored me and my unfortunately flavored chips and low-sugar soda.

I had failed in some strange way.