seanan_mcguire | "Would you like to share my breakfast?"

It's easy to forget sometimes, given the natural impulses to focus on the negative aspects of the world around us, that people can be inherently decent. (This ties into something I've been pondering, involving Monkeyspheres and the nature of social formations, but it's also its own thing, in isolation, which is why I'm bringing it up right now.) I mean, we're all horrible human beings at some point or other, but we're also capable of being really good people. Case in point:

I don't generally carry any cash with me. It's a combination of factors, the most pressing of which is probably "I am a slightly vacant-looking blonde woman with a real fondness for the sort of trail often featured in classic horror movies." I've never been mugged, and I'd really rather not start any time soon, so I make a point of having as little money on me as possible. It's fun! This does, however, put me at a bit of a disadvantage when people looking for a cup of coffee ask me if I have any change, since "No, for sociological reasons" doesn't make much sense without the context.

Some days, I head straight to the office in the morning. Other days, I stop by the 7-11 near the Montgomery Street BART Station, where I can obtain a Double-Big Gulp of Diet Dr Pepper to get me through the morning. Despite the fact that it's June and should be, I don't know, summer, it was misting lightly, resulting in instant chilly dampness. Peh.

As I walked toward the 7-11, a man sitting on the sidewalk asked, "If you have any change when you come out, could you maybe help me get some breakfast?" He was hugging his dog. It was a good dog, brown and tan and cold-looking, but good. I like dogs.

"I'll see what I can do," I said, and went inside.

About five minutes later, I came out with my soda, a large coffee, a bunch of sugar and creamer packets (I never got the hang of fixing other people's coffees), an egg-on-croissant sandwich, and the biggest cinnamon bun they had, on the theory that he could, I don't know, give whatever he wanted to the dog. As I emerged, a little girl was petting the dog, and he was reassuring her mother that he'd never ask a kid for money just to pet his dog. The kid and her mother left. I walked over.

"I brought you breakfast," I said, and started handing him food.

He was very pleased—who doesn't like food?—and asked my name. I told him. His name was Dave (the dog was Daisy). Smiles all around...and then, as I was turning to head for work, he waved to another homeless gentleman, this one older, thinner, and sitting back against a doorway to stay out of the wet, and asked what was probably the best pair of questions I'll hear all day:

"Hey, you hungry? You want to share my breakfast?"

Sometimes the human race is fundamentally decent, even when it's hungry, damp, and sitting on a San Francisco sidewalk.

It's gonna be a pretty good day.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Dar Williams, "Holly Tree."