Today I was out for an early morning run. Feeling pretty darn pleased with myself as I ran across the golf course, past the beach as the sun came up as a glorious orange ball and then through the mall. I joked with myself that I was going to do a marathon this week – well in five 8km segments! But hey it’s still a marathon!
Not too many people about and nothing much open. I noticed a homeless man[1] sitting on a bollard out the front of some of the swankier shops. He was working away at a strip of instant scratch lottery tickets. He had about five and judging by the size they were the $2 ones. I t’sked internally to myself. My judgy-judge voice started up in my squarely upper-middle class head.
Goodness! Fancy wasting $10 on lottery tickets! He should have bought himself a decent meal! A couple of decent meals! Ten dollars would maybe buy him one or two takeaway meals. If he waited for the sushi shop to have its sell out at the end of the day he could get three! Heck!
If he bought himself dried beans and rice and some veggies on special, he could probably feed himself for a week with that $10! Tut, tut, tut!
As I strode past him I began to think a bit more deeply about it.
Hang on dried beans need to be soaked overnight and then they need to be cooked for forty minutes or so. You’d need another pot for the rice and veggies. You’d need a kitchen.
Homeless people don’t have kitchens.
So perhaps spending ten bucks on some instant lottery tickets which could have potentially increased his capital by ten-thousand was probably not such a bad idea.
[1] I decided he was homeless because of his appearance, unkempt and scruffy.
Great post! Sad 🙁