Westchester the Co-ed

Earlier this week, as I was unloading my car following a looong weekend of play-related activity, I noticed a disheveled-looking man in his late-50’s do a double take at the end of my drive way, before stopping to wait for me there .

The man, although not particularly threatening-looking, was clearly homeless and seemed to be having trouble standing. As I got closer to him, I also began to detect the distinctive potpourri of booze wafting through the crisp night air. It was pungent, memorable, and probably Vodka.

“Excuse me mam’,” he said, as his eyes rolled lazily back into his head.

“Yeeeessssssssssss?” I replied cautiously.

Eight minutes later, the man concluded his tale or woe that had carefully explained how he was a college student from Madison, Wisconsin whose car had ran out of gas, and could I please help him with some gas money so he could get back to school in time for his Monday classes…….

Thinking back, had the street not been very dark and mostly deserted at the time, and had I not been carrying my weight in laundry, the exhaustion from the weekend, and the fear that he might have tried to just steal my purse, I probably would have given him some money. Not because I believed his line about being a college student. No, at 50 years old, the man was a far cry from the traditional image of college males as I remembered them-although I suppose he had the drunk part down right.

Either way, I lied and told him I was also a “poor college student,” and could not help. I figured, I might as well go along with the story-I liked college and remember it fondly. To my credit, I did point out the gas station down the road and encouraged him to call AAA!