Saturday evening just as it was turning dark, a young man came to my gate. He was as clean cut as a Mormon missionary (about the only other people prone to show up hereabouts at such an hour) and traveling on foot as they do. But he was solo. I had the vague feeling I’d seen him somewhere before.
“I was here with Mike the other day,” he said by way of introduction. He gave no name. Mike — meaning Handyman Mike — has gone through a steady stream of minions or minion wannabes, all pretty much interchangable to me. I’m trying to figure out which one this is.
“I see you still have that pile of construction material back there. Would you pay me to clean it up for you?”
Clean-cut though he may be, the whole business of a nameless stranger turning up on my doorstep in the near-dark is creepy. I’m still trying to figure out who he is when he announces, “I’m desperate for money.”
And lights up a cigarette.
Now, I can think of a fair number of ways for a young man to demonstrate that he’s either in dire financial straits or worthy of being hired because he’s good. But lighting up a cigarette (in a state where they cost nearly $10 a pack) isn’t one of them. I can’t afford to smoke. If he can, his “desperation” is manufactured.
I let him hand me his contact information over the closed six-foot gate (after I supplied paper and pen). He scrawled a phone number, but still offered no name. I finally asked who he was.
“Troy,” he said.
Then I remembered. Three weeks ago, he answered Mike’s ad for a construction helper. Mike interviewed him and he was supposed to start assisting on my Great Bathroom Project.
The morning he was to begin minioning he called Mike to say he had a flat tire. And no way of changing or fixing it. He finally made it here at 1:30, driven by a friend, just as Mike was going to lunch. Mike showed him the great heap of construction rubble outside the fenced part of the yard and invited him to work on organizing the stack until Mike’s return. Troy declined and left. After that, he didn’t return Mike’s calls. End of minioning.
Now here he is at the gate, weeks later, in the gathering dark on a weekend, wanting the work he wouldn’t do when he had the chance. But not really wanting work. Wanting money.
I’m not sure what it is lately with people being so eager to claim their desperation. Have they been reading Atlas Shrugged and mistaking the bad guys for the good guys or what? Do they seriously believe desperation gives them a compelling claim, some leg up in the race to earn a living?
All it gave me was the creeps.
I remember my Depression-era relatives talking about hungry men showing up on their doorsteps. In their stories, they always made a clear distinction between “hoboes” and “bums.” Hoboes, they said, would show up, hat in hand, offering to work. They didn’t speak of their need, only of their willingness. They were honest men — down on their luck but not broken. Bums, on the other hand, were no good and had probably never been any good. They might (or might not) offer to work, but really they were just looking for a handout. Or a place that might have something worth stealing.
I’ll leave it to you to decide what kind of person my evening visitor is. I don’t know. He might just be an inexperienced kid, born into the self-esteem era, having never been encouraged to acquire either manners, a work ethic, or common sense.
I do know that after he left I let down all the blinds and made sure all my self-defense tools were in good order and accessible. And I gave the dogs extra pats, recalling he’d been too scared of them to come in the yard the first time he was here.
So glad you have the dogs, Claire. That was sort of spooky.
Only had a few strangers come to the door here. I won’t open it for anyone I don’t recognize anymore – I look out the kitchen window. The “peep hole” in the door is too high… can’t see a darn thing with it. 🙂
Laddie barks now, sometimes. He’s working on it. 🙂
Definitely a little spooky.
I also rarely open the door to someone I don’t know. When they’re at the front door (which is basically unusuable and nobody who knows me goes there), I look out the kitchen window and wave them away. Other strangers, like this kid, come to the gate in the dog yard, which guards the back door. No stranger with sense comes inside it and if they did I wouldn’t open the door. By the time they get that far, Ava’s carrying on like crazy.
A year or so ago when I was worried about one of my clients possibly turning up on my doorstep uninvited and unwelcome (long story), I got a pair of doorbell cams. Must dig those things out and install them one of these days. Just need to rig some way to protect them from the weather. Then 100-feet or so of Cat-5 cable.
It’s a constant source of amazement to me that so many of the so-called poor can afford cigarettes. In our area there a lot of homeless men who walk around smoking a cigarette. Even if I wanted to smoke (which I don’t) I couldn’t afford the habit. It’s all I can do to support my occasional quality coffee–a lot cheaper that constant smoking.
So…no job, then?
Heh. I had to start rolling my own in 2008, with a big tax increase that (I’m told) caused cigarette smuggling to become a big priority problem for the state. Why this never occurs to the legislators and bureaucrats of border states, I truly don’t know. Finally gave up even buying loose tobacco, because smoking had simply become too expensive.
Yeah, if a guy tells me about his desperate poverty, while pulling a pack of Camels out of his pocket, he’s talking to the wrong guy.
I used to do “well baby” visits when I was a home health nurse. The county decided they’d save money not having the welfare mothers bring the babies into the clinics. Anyway, I was always astonished at the number of those women who smoked, wore expensive jewelry, had a TV in every room, much nicer furniture than anything in my house… Not to mention having babies they had no intention of supporting…
At least your stranger asked for work, however insincere he was. These women would laugh in your face at the very idea. And the men visiting these “ladies” didn’t look as if any sort of work was of interest to them either. As I recall, they all smoked constantly, and there was plenty of evidence of a lot of drinking sometimes too. Makes me sick to remember. Poor babies.
Reminds me of an ex-son-in-law. At heart a decent kid but no gumption or sense of responsibility and doesn’t have a clue even if you gave him the game.
The desperate in need “homeless” in my town are generally overweight, smoke, drink and find enough money for meth.
Perhaps he is decent at heart, but I believe you should, if you haven’t already, tell Mike about the incident. When Troy was first at your place, he came up with the most plausible (albeit lame) excuses he could find not to work. He seems miraculously to have overcome his fears of dealing with a pile of rubble alone and of your vicious dogs. Showing up at dusk on Saturday is a big red flag; having to all but drag his name out of him is another. Yes, creepy, very creepy. If he had more than one false start with Mike, he’s probably trolled the other customers too. If they weren’t as persistent as you, they might not have gotten his name, so even if they talked to Mike, he wouldn’t necessarily know who had come to their place. Mike, who does an honest business, deserves to know who’s trying to get around him so he will know absolutely not to deal with the sorry s*** again. The decent homeowners in your area would benefit also. Depending on how well you get along with the local cops, it might be worth letting them know, so at least they can be aware of a potential problem.
Well, as someone who’s “been there, done that”, I can tell you that I scrimped on a lot of things, but somehow, almost never went short of smokes. And yes, sometimes, they were gimmes. That’s how addiction works, you know. It’s a powerful thing. I had friends who were smokers, so sometimes a free pack or so would come my way.
And, when you’re stressed out from hard times, it seems that addiction drags at you even harder.
But then, I’ve also known some freeloaders too, and most of them smoked.
Good thing that the dogs were there I hate to think what otherwise could have taken place. Pretty dumb move to come by around dusk on his part. There was probably nothing to it, he may have been like the guy living in the trailer near you when you were in Cabin Sweet Cabin. However having said that, Claire you were right it was Creepy with a capitol C. I don’t say this lightly but Shel is right you should tell Mike about it, keep the self-defense tools in good order and very accessible plus get the CCTV working.
Geez! I’m glad you’re very savvy at staying safe.
I think if there were any more red flags waving around this guy, he’d look like a color guard squad.
I hope he caught the hint and won’t be back.
Red flags. I think that’s it. The guy may be as harmless as he is clueless. But you have to pay attention to those red flags.
And people wonder why I carry at home.
Back in the day a couple of our friends got married. At the reception they announced they had quit smoking. That was the 1970s, long before the tobacco sin taxes started piling on, but when they were doing a combined budget they discovered that what they were spending on cigarettes would make payments on a new car.
ML, Claire’s Amazon has a whole page of low-tech, drill hole/insert, door peepholes for $10-$20.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_8?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=peephole+for+front+door&sprefix=peephole+for+front+door%2Caps%2C428
Send ’em away. No need to waste any time with them. They are the government’s problem now, not ours – ever since government instituted welfare. Heaven knows we’ve already “contributed” enough already for their maintenance.
Smokers are not desperate enough, yet.
I will occasionally deal with Mexicans. Most of them seem willing to work like dogs, even if the quality is sometimes lacking. I don’t give a rat’s ass if they are “legal” or not, either. In fact I like the idea that the ruling class has not puts its stamp of approval on them. It also means they don’t pay taxes, always a good thing.
Definitely, fix things so you don’t have to open the door to interact with these folks, and go to the door with a gun in your hand too. Lots of freaky shit going on out there, and it’s only getting worse when the economy crashes.
“Anyway, I was always astonished at the number of those women who smoked, wore expensive jewelry, had a TV in every room, much nicer furniture than anything in my house… Not to mention having babies they had no intention of supporting…”
Check out “New American Way of Life” by John Tabb:
http://hopelesslysane.blogspot.com/2015/08/its-enough-to-make-you-cry_31.html
I would be skeptical of some of this stuff, but my first wife was a public aid social worker. Reality soon suppressed her altruistic streak.
I am always amazed when I see able bodied young men who find the idea of physical work either beneath themselves, or too difficult.
I am 55 years old, have been working since age 11, by choice, doing physical labor type work mostly my whole life. I am of some what normal intelligence, having gone to college a number of times, although never finishing a degree, since things like life and divorce and child support entered into the mix. Just like everyone else.
However through all of that I have a 4.0 GPA in a Science field, so I am not totally stupid or lacking in motivation. I just realize that work is not always about who you are. Who you are is about your attitude towards that work and how you treat the people who you work around.
If this fine young man doesn’t find some motivation in his life, I predict a long, tough road ahead for him and, unfortunately for any poor girl that hooks up with him, as well as kids they spawn. And the cycle of sorrow swirls ever downward.
[I am always amazed when I see able bodied young men who find the idea of physical work either beneath themselves, or too difficult.]
Me too, but the problem is really not the individuals in question but the incentives they face. Once they get hungry they will change their tune. At the moment government and parents are still rewarding poor behavior.
“Once they get hungry they will change their tune.”
I agree that’s true overall — and thank heaven. As a general rule, individuals, generations, and cultures will change when they see that the easy way out isn’t producing the easy life. Alas, though, we’ve probably all known plenty of individuals who continued to find ways not to get it well into adulthood.
I’m thinking about people like D., the career criminal I’ve written about. I’m thinking about a cousin of mine, a big, strapping healthy guy who was raised to see himself as both pitiable and entitled and who perfected the technique of getting construction jobs then “injuring” himself three or four days in and going on unemployment or disability.
Of course, I guess it’s still true that if people like that were actually hungry they’d get it — or die. But nobody’s allowed to face that reality in the west today.