Lessons of a Fried Pork Chop

May 29, 2008 - Thursday

Lessons of a Fried Pork Chop
Current mood: bitchy

Okay so this was a seperate blog that I had to break into another piece because there was too much to digest in just one section. Yesterday while looking at the apartment that I'm considering in South East, I took a bus and a train over to the Anacostia station and ended up (finally) at the corner of 17th and Minnesota Ave. where 1411 Ridge Place is located. Getting there, I saw that the house needed some work but I could view the potential there as it had a nice little front garden, though I have yet to see the inside. That could make or break the deal for me. We'll see. Granted it is in the hood no doubt, but for a beginning house, it's not that bad. I could definitely see the potential there. And if she's truly asking for 665 for it, then that's a powerful initiative. Anyway, after viewing the house, I left there and because I was starving, I ended up at Good Hope Takeout, which serves as many places in the area of the same origin do, as a multi-hypenated resturant function. A Chinese/Soul/American/Seafood place. So I bought a fried pork chop dinner with a box of chicken wings off to the side. Since this was the kind of place that didn't have a dining area (hence "Takeout") and since I didn't want to be chowing on chicken via bus, I decided to just chill there in the parking lot and eat some of it. I got through the chicken wings (which were banging) and I finished off the tea when I was going to eat the pork chop and the rice, but I didn't feel hungry anymore after that point. So I just decided to bag up the remains and take it home.



While waiting for the bus to come, I ran into a man who was standing on the corner and after talking to him for a bit, I asked if he lived in the area. He said he was homeless, and so I was like, "Oh I get it. That's too bad." And he was mumbling about going down to the metro station to beg for some food. I was sitting there complating the entire incident when I thought about it and I wondered what it would be like if I were begging for food, and my conscious got the best of me. I offered him my plate of pork chop and rice and he took it, placing it in his backpack to eat later. However things got weirder when he asked if he could use my phone. I said yes and he called a friend of his and told him that he was going to pay him some money that he owed the next day. To me, this didn't make any sense. After he hung up, I asked him about it. I mean how can you say you're gonna pay someone some money when you supposedly can't afford to buy dinner for the night? He said that his aunt was sending him some money and it wasn't a big deal but I suddenly started feeling like I was getting played. And it was then I started thinking about the lessons of a fried pork chop.



Living here in this city, you see homeless people. A lot. And though it may sound cold to say so, all you can really do most of the time, is just pass them by and keep it moving. Granted, I'm a just graduated college student living by the skin of my teeth in this crazy city, and I can't afford to be giving you all my belongings, because I don't have much! But that's not the thing that makes me mad. I've seen people who are probably better off than me, begging on the street corner because they're bored or need something to do. Or at least those are some of the stories I hear from the paramedics and others. She told me one night they stopped to help a man who was homeless and on the way to the hospital, he asked if he could stop at an ATM and when he did he printed a bank statement stating he had over 10 million in the bank. His homeless act was truly that. Trying to get his kids to leave him alone when they thought he had money. And further still, there are others who just play the game because they don't know what it feels like and want to experience something new. This is complete and utter bullshit to me. Andrew (a totally cute new intern here) and I spent the day together going to the Career Fair and while we were out, we ran into a couple, and I was looking at them closely. One man who asked us for change was sitting in a fairly nice suit with an expensive watch on his arm begging for money. And I didn't understand that. Then when we went to Five Guys, there was a black woman who was missing a leg, who decided to stop and park her wheelchair right in front of the parking meter as people were coming in for lunch. She had her purse slung around her neck looking fairly well to do, and put the mocha latte she was sipping on from Starbucks on the ground behind her chair and she sat there not saying a word, with a cup hanging out in front of her. When a man did stop to give her something, he presented her with what looked like 40.00. She reached in her cup when he turned around, and pocketed the change ringing the cup stating it was empty. It was really annoying to see. And then a college girl chilling on her apartment decided to start shaking her cup at us when we were passing by. I wanted to cuss her out right there on the street. Just because we went to school and got degrees and you chose not to pursue a further education and sit bored on the street all damn day doesn't mean that you have the right to leach off other charity. As a person with a disability, I fight all the time against that stigma that we're worthless in the society that we don't contribute.



It just made me angry. And I'll think about that pork chop every time I see someone begging from now on.