I’m a bad citizen

So this past weekend Enoch and Karen were in town with the kids. On Labor Day Monday, we all went to visit my grandma (on my mother’s side) in Monterey Park for lunch. It was sooooooo freaking warm that day. Ugh. i detest these typical indian summers. :(

Anyway visiting my grandma’s with the nephews is so surreal… why? Well, for example, looking at that picture above, if I wanted to, I bet I can find a picture in my parents photo albums somewhere a picture in which my brothers and I are just a few years older than my nephews are now and we’re sitting on the same couch in front of the same coffee table in the same condo. That’s weird. I’ll make it a point to look for such an image the next time I visit my parents.

After lunch, we all went our separate ways. I headed over to Baldwin Park and picked up Lyndon to go hang out for a bit. Since it’s like a million degrees in Monterey Park it was like a million + 1 degrees in Baldwin Park so we opted to seek comfort in an air conditioned environment — the mall. Unfortunately, everyone else and their momma decided to do that too. After driving around the parking lot for about 30 minutes looking for parking, we were finally able to bask in the air conditioned goodness of the Santa Anita Mall.

Since we didn’t really have any plans as to what to do at the mall, we checked out the AMC which was not showing anything either of us wanted to see. We then just walked around and did typical stupid stuff like people watching and making fun of merchandise so ugly, we’d be amazed if it sold. At one point, we passed a barbershop; since Lyndon had been complaining about his horrible haircut from the previous week (it was ugly), he decided to get it fixed but getting an extra short trim. While he was getting his hair cut, I decided to go get a pretzel from the food court–this is were my poor citizenship came into play.

As I was waiting for the pimple-ridden high schooler to roll my pretzel in fat and sugar/cinnamon, these two girls came up behind me; they looked to be in middle school/early high school and were dressed like little whores who fell out of a Bratz movie trailer or Forever 21. Since I thought they were just customers waiting, I didn’t pay them any attention; but then one of them says “excuse me?” I turn around puzzled and one of the girls asks me if I can spare a dollar — they’re really hungry. At this point, my brain went into typical Jacob mode: what is the easiest course of action to get rid of these annoying pests? Well, the answer was obvious, just give them a dollar and shoo them away.

As they took the dollar greedily to perhaps buy a McDonalds hamburger to share and then throw up, the Wetzel’s Pretzels clerk told me casually I shouldn’t have given them the dollar and that those two girls come around quite often asking for money. So that got me thinking: these two girls, one Asian and one Caucasian, are dressed decently and do not look like their are in much of any need. Certainly if they were hungry, it would be their own faults for not going home and getting food. The way in which both were dressed, I would hardly expect that either came from struggling families. At this point, I just became disgusted — disgusted with them and with myself.

How wrong it is on Labor Day of all days to be pan handling for money at the mall? Especially when you aren’t in any real need? What kind of low life scum does that? And to not just point my finger at these little pre-teen prostitutes in training, but why the hell did I give them a dollar to begin with? In my mind, a dollar isn’t much, but then again… isn’t it a lot? Sometimes we see homeless people, humans with a genuine need, asking for money and we don’t give any to them. If I’m too busy to spare a dollar for a homeless man on the street, what kind of jerk am I that I give a dollar to two little girls that don’t really need it and further more have shown behavior completely undeserving? Ugh, that’s why I’m a bad citizen. Next year, I’m only giving dollars out to homeless girls. :p