Kindness: Food for Homeless. Rejected.

On Friday night, Husband and I went out to dinner at a smokey-pit barbecue place. We waited a while and then stuffed our faces with tasty food. They even threw in a free appetizer. Because of the serving sizes, the pre-meal cornbread, the free app, we had leftovers. Mostly meat - ribs, sausage, pulled pork - and a dollop of potato salad.

It was snowing and we took the T as close as we could to our house. And then set off to walk 15 more minutes. Near the subway exit, we came across a homeless man, sitting on a crate, bundled up in the shelter of a storefront overhang. Husband and I looked at each other, and he approached the man. Asked him if he wanted some leftovers. Still warm. Very tasty. He politely declined, saying he was fine. Strange, but maybe he had just eaten at the soup kitchen and was hunkered down for the night. We walked on.

In the same block we came to another homeless person; a woman asking for spare change. We offered her the food. She asked what it was. We said mostly meat, ribs. She shook her head and said she was French Canadian. Not sure how that had anything to do with not wanting the food. Then she amended it to say she was a vegetarian. Well, that makes more sense. But she still wanted spare change for a sandwich. Not sure you could get a very filling sandwich with no meat. So we walked on.

Maybe we should have given her money anyway, but her answers seemed to signal that maybe it wasn't going to go toward food anyway. Possibly, but we thought no.

Sometimes kindness isn't always gladly accepted.