James Lafond describes a Baltimore “youth” hitting the pity jackpot:
A high school student who was hooking school boarded the bus at the next stop and stood plaintively with hands out looking back toward the passengers. This drama is played out so often on buses, and has such a predictable outcome, that the bus driver just pulled off, knowing that the boy had hit the pity jackpot.
Three middle-aged women and one young woman all stepped forward to load this boy down with change, with statements such as, “There you go baby, something extra for lunch.”
The boy did not even say thanks. He knew that he was entitled to this money. I will tell you this, if that boy steps up to a lone middle-aged woman at a bus stop at night, and she does not give him what he is entitled to, he will take it.
I have interviewed many such women, who have been mugged by the very boys that had begged change from me [panhandled] on the next stop up mere minutes before these women boarded the bus and said with a note of surprise, “I just got rolled by some kid!”