I have never thought of myself as apathetic. On the contrary, I have always considered myself quite compassionate and empathetic.
Yesterday, after a short hike at Lake Chabot, my husband, my sister, my baby and I all stopped in to the local Starbucks in San Leandro before heading over to the farmer's market so that we could get some coffee, and I could feed my baby.
As I began to nurse, I watched through the window as a homeless man in a ratty suit approached each car in the drive-thru, seemingly to ask for money. Then he entered through the front door and proceeded to ask each and every customer in the quite packed coffee house if we could "help him get a bite to eat."
Here I am, baby on the boob, irritated.
Not at the man for asking. For I do believe that that is his right. This is what we get for living in a free country. The right not to work. The right to slowly spiral downward in society. Or perhaps the right to simply stay in the poverty-stricken situation into which one was born. Of course we also have the right to be subjected to rules, laws, and regulations that are increasingly designed to ensure that each of us stays in our proper caste. But that is a, much longer, blog for another day. We also have the right to ask people for money.
It does not hurt me to be asked. It does not make me ashamed that I can buy myself a grande decaf soy one pump vanilla latte and a couple of chocolate hazelnut tarts while this man begs for fifty cents. In this moment I cannot fully comprehend his situation, and he cannot fully comprehend mine.
But I was highly irritated that the six Starbucks employees did nothing about protecting their customers from this encounter.
And I find myself wondering what this says about me. Why do I feel the need to be protected?
"First of all, it doesn't bother me." Says my husband. "But let's just not go back to that Starbucks. It's ghetto anyway. That way you don't have to see that."
And I think that's what bothers me. The implication that somehow because I expect to be left alone while drinking my coffee and breastfeeding, that I would "rather not see" the harsher realities of life in this country.
I know this is not the case. I will go back. And I will complain again, as I did the first time, if it happens again, to the Starbucks employees that they did nothing to keep this solicitor outside the building where he belongs as long as he is soliciting.
For this is what I think it boils down to: if he were selling Girl Scout cookies, or vacuum cleaners, or knock-off Rolex watches, he would have been quickly asked to stand outside on the free public streets where we can all respond to him as we will. But because he was begging, he is somehow off limits to the unspoken rules of what is appropriate. Or even the clearly written rule on the door that says "No Solicitors."
In the end, I am still left wondering if all of this makes me apathetic. Despite the fact that I would not have minded at all to be approached outside, and that I may have given him money or food if I had either. Because my husband, saint that he is, was not bothered at all, and in all seriousness was lamenting the fact that he did not have a dollar to give the man, I now question my empathy and re-evaluate my apathy.
Damn Carlos.
