Please Don't Ask Me!!!

I was riding down mission street, because that was the route I was given that day. It's my favorite bus route to drive because so much can happen, but on this occasion on this day there was a boy, had nothing. He had sat on me with his baggy jeans, dirty large over-sized t-shirt. The boy was looking around the bus and observing the people on the bus. He made eye contact with a few people, and had decided that now would be the perfect time to start to do what he had planned to do on the bus. As I realized that he looked like he was up to something, I began to pay extra attention. The young man stood up with his over- size jeans, and approached the old lady sitting across from him. "Hi, Ma'am, could you spare some change?" The frightened old lady grabbed her purse tight and shook her head no. Lonely in the back sat a college student with his headphones on, who was observing the very act that I was. I knew what he was thinking, "Please don't ask me for money!!!" the thought repeated in his head. He saw the young man continuously asking every single person on the bus if they had change to spare. Few gave him change, many politely said they had nothing, and very few completely ignored him. He was at the halfway point of the bus, and the young man with baggy clothes was approaching the college student. I took it upon myself to tell him something that a friend had told me when I traveled to New York when I was young about people asking for money. "The key to dealing with people who are going to ask you something, is to anticipate their question and ask them before they ask you. You essentially want to act crazier than the person who will approach you," I explained to him. As the young man in baggy clothes got closer, the college student rehearsed what he was going to do when the young man approached him. It was the moment of truth and there they were. A young boy with baggy, ragged, clothes, staring into the eyes of a college student. "Hey man do you have some spare change?" the college student asked the young man with baggy clothes. The kid with baggy clothes looked at the college student. The college student knew that the young man was questioning if the college student was being serious. The college student started acting as if he had a twitch and started whispering sentences that made no sense at all. The young man in baggy clothes looked again at the college student and smiled. As he smiled at the college student he put his hands in his pocket, and grabbed all the money he had been collecting from the bus rides he had ridden all day. With both hands full of change and a few bills, he looked at the college student, gave him the money and said, "I'm always eager to help those who need help more than I do." Guilt ran through the veins of the college student. The young man walked away and got off the bus at the next stop. The college student sat there, as did I. Both surprised with how the situation had turned out, me and the college student realized something. Sometimes people don't look like their intentions are genuine, but looks can be deceiving. The college student sat on the bus with two hands full of change, embarrassed, and stood up because his stop was coming. All I could hope for at this point was that the college student would do something right with the money that he had received. As the college student walked off the bus, there was a homeless man pushing a shopping cart full of blankets, with a coffee tin can hanging at his side. The college student took the money and put it in the homeless man's tin. He smiled at the homeless man, and walked away. After I saw that I knew it was my turn to pay it forward. I drove off and continued on my route, but I felt it was my duty to give everyone a free ride for the rest of the day, and I decided to light up my out of order sign on the money dispenser.