A man approached me on the street and I immediately sensed trouble. Not the kind where you might get knifed. More like the kind where you get talked into signing a petition for a deaf baseball team. You know the feeling. Your mission is to avoid eye contact, assume the characteristics of the busiest human on earth, and hope for the best.
"Hey", the stranger called out. Key-fiddling, bag-searching, activated. "Hey", he called again, oblivious to my charade. "You hungry?" he asked. "Not really", I responded. The man did not look like a lunatic. "Because I have an ice cream sandwich". The man was indeed a lunatic.
He pulled out a half-melted ice cream sandwich from his bag, and waving it in my face added, "I'm just gonna throw it away". "Okay" I said, granting him permission to do just that. He glared at me and proceeded to a trash can where he forcefully tossed the sandwich. Then he was gone.
I looked around in search of a witness, but I was alone.
Was the man being serious? Did I look hungry? Or… was this a lesson? Maybe I was being tested? What if I just turned down an ice cream sandwich from Jesus?!!
I felt guilty.
Convinced that I missed an important celestial message I eagerly awaited another sign. I looked to the sky. And a bag of rice from a Red Cross helicopter landed on my face. That didn't happen. But I did look to the sky. No rice.
But there must have been a message. I thought about why I said "no".
a) These days, you can't trust any stranger with a half-melted ice cream sandwich. There could have been a razor blade in it.
b) I wasn't hungry.
3) Eating an ice cream sandwich involves getting messy. And it wasn't the right time or place for that.
I wasn't being rude. I was being honest.
Hot Spanish Nannies! That's it!
There was that homeless man outside of California Pizza Kitchen. On my way out, I offered him my leftovers and he told me to 'f off'. I thought I was helping and instead he rejected my pizza ala Dikembe Mutombo, finger waving and all.
It was shocking to think that a homeless man wouldn't want my food, but now I saw this in a new light. Maybe he didn't trust me. There could have been razor blades in the pizza. Maybe he just wasn't hungry. Or maybe he too just didn't want to get messy. No comment.
There could have been any number of reasons why he passed on the pizza, but it was unfair to expect him to accept my leftovers with open arms. A "thank you" would have been nice, though. And maybe that's all Mr. Ice Cream Sandwich wanted.
Not sure if there's a direct correlation here between the two events, but lessons were learned. Just because you are homeless doesn't mean you are hungry. Ice cream sandwiches will melt in your bag. And if you avoid eye contact, you might miss Jesus.