Not all panhandlers are scam artists. But some are, and one way to get yourself busted pretty quickly is to drive your 2013 Fiat to your, er, "job" and get spotted by the same guy who saw you begging earlier.
This is NSFW, and entirely unforgettable:
To make it even weirder, the video was shot by a woman named Brandi Newman, who posted it on YouTube and was subsequently told by the City of Oklahoma City that they actually issue panhandling permits for $200 apiece. Come again? If you can afford the $200 for the permit . . . I guess you see where I'm going. And I suppose it's entirely possible that really good panhandlers could make that back in no time.
Old lady, complaining that she hasn't eaten, looking pathetic . . . sure. Newman said she had given the woman money herself, which certainly helped inspire the decision to shoot this video.
By the way, if you're going to panhandle in the middle of a city as most do, don't you also have to factor in parking costs for your 2013 Fiat? Hey, you're running a business here. You have to account for overhead. I wonder if she's incorporated. Maybe she could factor in depreciation on the cost of the car when planning her long-term tax strategies.
Like I said at the beginning, there are people who are genuinely needy. Sometimes I give money and sometimes I don't, basically just determined by how the Holy Spirit leads me. But the idea that people can do this as a business venture, enabled by cities who issue them licenses, leads inevitably to angry confrontations like this.
At least she didn't buy a GM car. In addition to scamming people out of their money, she could be a danger to herself and others on the road.
