A post in which I briefly debate the nature of charity

I had an agenda tonight. I think I may have taken on a bit too much schedule-wise.

Tonight I had to go to the pharmacy, the grocery store, do a load of towels, and do my state taxes. The errands were run, and I was tearing into the house when I was approached by a guy. He was walking down the street, and I first thought Crap, he wants money. But he asked to cut the grass so he could get some food, so I said sure. I quickly got the groceries in, got the mower out, determined (of course) that I had no gas, and ran to the store to get some.

As I was on the way to the station, I happened to think that I had left this man on the front porch with my lawn mower sitting in the yard. That wasn’t a particularly smart thing to do, but I didn’t think they would be gone when I got back, and they weren’t. I put him to work, put the towels in, and futzed around the house while he worked outside.

A rather elegant solution to a dilemma presented itself. Amanda had left Chinese food with chicken in it in my fridge. (I loathe it when people leave meat in my house. I feel guilty if I eat it, and I feel guilty if I throw it out, so it’s a lose/lose.) I had resolutely decided to eat it for supper (the only thing worse than an animal dying so that I can eat is an animal dying so that I can eat and ending up in the trash), but I decided instead to feed it to the guy, whose name I discovered was Wayne. I heated it up, fixed Wayne a to-go box, poured him some soda, and sent him on his way when he finished. Of course I paid him as well.

I don’t know if I get credit for that or not. I don’t think feeding the poor your left-overs is particularly generous, but it was something I was going to eat myself. Does giving someone something that you don’t want count as charity? I’ll let the philosophers decide.

I ate my own supper and sat down with the best of intentions to finish the state taxes, but found I had pulled the wrong forms offline. I wanted the EZ, and had the regular 1040, so I put that aside and just vegged out on RuPaul’s Drag Race, my latest semi-addiction and excuse for not getting squat done. Eventually I put the towels in the dryer and toddled off to bed. I have a long day tomorrow.