I just needed to get gas. What started with me standing beside my car in sunglasses (watching the pump ticker go all the way up to $75!) quickly turned into me giving a lecture to a young man about how being a con-artist (IF he was one) is NOT cool. What the?!?!?!??
“Excuse me ma’am can you help me?” (First of all, I still haven’t gotten used to the ‘ma’am’ thing… yuk. Couldn’t he see I was wearing platform wedges? What ‘ma’am’ wears such bitchin’ shoes??) He explained how he was making a delivery for a company he worked for about 30 miles away and how he left his gas card at work and needed money to get back to his office. He was about 2-inches shorter than me, skinnier than me, looked about 17 and a half and had these big round hazel eyes with freckles all over his face. In other words, he looked like a sweet little kid who got lost during his paper route. But his story didn’t mesh. I was pretty sure he was lying and just trying to con people at my local service station into getting him free gas. “Give me a minute to think about it” I told him.
After I finished pumping my own gas, I marched over to his shell of a pickup truck, handed him an Honest Abe along with the following stern-but-caring tirade:
“Are you lying? Are you really stuck or are you just standing here trying to con all of us here?” His eyes got really big and mouth dropped open a bit. “I’m going to give you this [$5 bill] with the knowledge in the back of my head that you might be conning all of us, but with the hope that you’re not. If you are conning all of us, that’s totally not cool dude. [Yes, I really did throw in a ‘dude’ I think.] If you’re lying, let this be your last thrill of a fling and stop doing it. If you’re not lying, then I hope this helps you.”
“I’m not lying” he looked me in the eye. I still didn’t believe him… especially since the pump he was at read around $45 already pumped. I called him out on it [which he disputed] and repeated, “If you’re conning me, that sucks. But I’m giving you this money knowing that I might be giving it as a sucker.”
“Thank you” he said.
Poor kid. If he was telling the truth he got stuck listening to a lecture from some haughty new mother thinking she was going to convert the next Frank Abagnale in the making. I handed him the bill, got in my car and left.
Since I became a mommy, I’ve noticed a new and sometimes inappropriate sense of confidence emerge. If I think it or suspect it, I will most likely tell you (I did this before, but now I just do it more casually, frequently, and with hope of rehabilitation). And I don’t seem to hesitate or double-think my actions. The old me would’ve resisted this kid’s plea for money. This new me just kept thinking this is someone’s kid… I fell for it, but not without providing a motherly lecture. Has this happened to anyone else? Who/what have YOU gone all motherly on?
Awesome.
Hi Jill!
Totally had a “motherly moment” very similar to yours. I was getting out of my car in a parking lot getting ready to go to Ralphs with my daughter and a very bubbly, perky young guy walked straight up to me. Told me he was part of a competition and the “prize” was winning a scholarship to help pay for his Community College units. He told me, “thought you looked so friendly and wanted to tell you that Im in a competition with my class” … yes I said, “its for my communication class and our teacher is challenging us to go up to strangers we are selling magazine subscriptions, and whoever sells more wins!” uh, huh… continue I told him.. “well, the more people I convince to buy magazine subscriptions the more communication skills I have and all the proceeds will go to the winner” … I too, told him, “well this sounds fishy to me, like your Conning me….” but I caved in and I gave him 20 bucks in cash for a magazine subscription to Health Magazine which by the way, 8 months later, is yet to arrive. I told him,” if I never get my subscription in the mail, then I know this whole speech you gave me was a complete CON, so I guess I will just have to wait to see if you are for real, or if you are Suckering women in the parking lot that, for the sake a few moments of amusement and attention, buy a Magazine subscription.” -No Magazine, Complete CON, Im a Complete Sucker… but boy, if I see him in that parking lot again, will he get a lecture.