The Art Of Asking For Money (Never Ever Beg If You're Still Able-Bodied)

       So I was half-asleep inside a passenger jeepney one night when I was jolted by two thug-looking tattooed men  who boarded the vehicle and promptly announced: “Don’t be afraid, we’re not out to harm you.” But it was too late, some of the passengers already got scared, one of them, a woman, almost dropped her high-end phone in an attempt to quickly hide it. Me, I almost jumped out of the window.

       The two thugs or thug-looking men then brandished a (fake) document, saying that they were asking for a little help for their mother sick with cancer. (This is quite a common occurrence in public transport, people boarding the vehicle you’re in, asking for help, brandishing documents as proof of disease or of death, telling their captive audience that they’d rather ask money that way instead of becoming thieves or criminals.) Talk about emotional blackmail. 

       One of the two men was well-built and looked stronger than the male passengers (which included me; I weighed 56 kilos but 46 kilos of it were made of junk food and cotton candies so...), one was quite thin, drug-addict thin (and with eyes that said "I've seen life's worst so don't f--cking mess with me" so I immediately looked away) but was still able-bodied, and they were practically begging (with a sprinkle of a scam). A lot of people I knew would rather honorably shoot themselves with a gun than beg for money. And these two scamming men couldn't be brothers as they didn't resemble each other a bit.

       And as should be the case, no one gave them money, not even a single, rusty coin, and for a while there, when one of the men grimaced and touched his back pocket, I braced my self for them announcing instead a hold-up—luckily, no such announcement happened. The two beggars, er, the two needy citizens grumblingly alighted. Sorry for being judgmental.

   
       You’re jobless and want to ask money from people? The video below will show you how to do it: Be a busker, pick up a guitar and sing a Pink Floyd song and I assure you, I will give you my lifetime savings (which amount to PhP860) provided you sing four Pink Floyd songs plus two encores. That’s too much? Okay, three Pink Floyd songs and an encore. You don’t know how to play any instruments? An a cappella will do. Lol.

       At 2:30 in the video, the cop's probably telling the busker : “You can stay here only if you play nothing but Pink Floyd. And please play ‘Dogs’ later.”

       Good choice, sir. An absolute aural feast, “Dogs” will certainly make those who love rock music blissful for seventeen minutes.