COLLECTION: Giving It Away

So, the other day was my birthday. “The other day,” that’s as much info as you’re going to get out of me on that one. Don’t bother IMDBing me either, those guys are off on all fronts (day, year, location), they’re off their rocker. Unfortunately, so are some of my family members…

My Mom got a cake to commemorate the occasion.


Did you notice anything off about the cake? Er, that’s right, its only half there. Really, all kidding aside, my Mom got me half a birthday cake. Yup, she’s a special snowflake too.


Er, um, ok. A part of me was almost too worried to ask what the other half of the cake said…. Your guess is a good as mine, but she swears it never existed; Something about having to buy the second half of a cake second hand from a restaurant on account of her not having enough warning. I don’t know.


The thing is this: We didn’t really have enough time to eat the thing before I got back on a bus bound for NYC, so my Mom suggested I take the remainder of the cake with me to feed my fellow riders.
“Mom, no one’s going to eat cake from a stranger,” I argued.
“Of course they are, it’s cake, and everyone loves cake.”
“No, retards love cake. Normals like it enough to eat on occasion, but not from a stranger. Hell, I’m not even sure most people would take money from a stranger if you upped and handed it to them…”

And with that, my first and only failing post was born.

I give you the 20-dollar dilemma.



It’s simple really, and I encourage you to replicate the experiment to see if you do better than me, but the basic premise is this:

—Start with $20 in one dollar bills.
—Give them out to strangers in passing one at a time…. My opening line was simple, “Excuse me, can I give you a dollar,” but feel free to vary yours as you see fit.
—When asked “why?” or “what for?” offer nothing but “why not?” and “for anything you want.” If asked what they’ll owe you in return, the proper answer is “nothing.”
Good luck. Like I said, I didn’t do so well.

Hell even my good friend Jessa was skeptical. In fact, she wanted no part of it.


Neither did this guy.


Or this guy.


At a certain point, I began to ask myself “would I take money from this man?”


Luckily, this girl did…


…though I think she did it primarily so she could get back to her conversation.


So did this lady.


And this girl.


In fact, my spirits were beginning to raise…


…until she confessed she was new in town… “Lets hope I’m not taking money from strangers in a few months,” she said.


More no’s:






(I see now that this guy had headphones in though—he probably couldn’t hear what I was saying)




What gives?


I decided to give a dollar to a homeless person.


Even if he didn’t ask.


After three hours of rejection I had a thought: I’ll bet the same people who wouldn’t take money from a stranger would happily pick it up if they found it laying around…


…but by then I was over it. Really as hard as I tried, I only averaged a $1 an hour. That sucks. I’ll bet pan handlers can collect it faster than I can get rid of it. What the fuck?


And by the time I got home, I was borderline delirious.


I called my Mom who still swears there’s something magical about cake...


“I get it,” she offered, “who wants a dollar, you cant do anything with a dollar—cake you can eat.”


Right….

Anyway, like I said, the first ever failed post. On the upside, this means I’ve now got to update again this week (get back on that horse kid) and I’ve got some pretty good shit in store. Stay tuned. Oh, and rest assured the next time I give a stranger a dollar, she'll be wearing a g-string. At least then you know what you're getting youself into.