I was driving out of the parking lot when I saw him. My car was filled with orange marigolds, purple petunias, and all the stuff I need to make a lemon birthday cake for my 11 year old boy.

He was about 20 years old, wearing dirty shorts, a t-shirt, and Teva-esq sandals. He had a mop of long curly hair, and needed a shower, but he had a charming, smart smile. It was his sign that caught my eye:

“Help I don’t want to dive in the dumpster again.”

Clever I thought, and I smiled back at him. My first thought was to pull over and ask him to tell me his story. He seemed harmless enough, probably a free spirit, down on his luck, trying to get up the road a bit. Why are you standing here? I’d ask, and then listen for a while, and give him a little money for his time.

But something about the clearly lettered, cheeky little sign made me keep going. There are other places for him to go for help besides this parking lot. I give money to those places. He’ll eat tonight. He can navigate the system. I didn’t roll down my window. I didn’t stop.

A half a block later I saw the next man. He was old, beaten down, wiry thin with long stringy hair and a bushy beard. A soiled gauze bandage was wrapped around his elbow. I saw the oozy stuff of an old wound seeping through. His mangy dog was sound asleep under a tree, a plastic cup that may have held water, tipped over beside him.

“HOMELESS VET ANYTHING YOU CAN GIVE EVEN A SMILE WOULD HELP” said his sign. I made eye contact, and he smiled. Many of his teeth were gone. I recognized the look in his eye. A certain desperation that creeps into the faces of the mentally ill cannot be hidden.

I rolled down the window and gave him $5. I smiled at him when he said “thank you ma’m, God bless you.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Good luck.”

He cannot work the system. A McDonald’s hamburger for him and the dog, and a big bottle of cheap beer may be all he has to look forward to today. He’ll worry about tomorrow when it comes.

Today I’m planting flowers in pots the kids decorated for my front porch, and then going off to a party, where I’ll play putt-putt golf, laugh, and eat pizza with a nice group of parents and their sons. My boy will go to bed with a full belly, in clean sheets, probably holding his new game I just bought, which is now wrapped in hand-painted brown grocery sack paper his sisters made for him this afternoon.

I hope he’ll be able to work the system some day. If not, I hope someone will give him $5.