Excuse Me, But Your Poverty Is Ruining My Vacation

Dec 15, 2009

This time of year, I become acutely aware of poverty around the world. I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s freaking cold, or maybe because the TV is full of desperate adverts about some useless crap that we just MUST buy in order to have the proper “holiday spirit”.  I don’t know if it’s just me growing old and cynical, but the older I get, the more I just can’t stand Christmas at all. It was magical when I was five. Now I really want to hibernate for the entire month.

If the shopping madness doesn’t get me, there’s people who scream about the “true meaning of Christmas” while they sing Yule Tide Carols, tack up some Druidic mistletoe, and put lights on a pagan “Christmas” tree.  I don’t have anything against Christians. I have a lot of respect for people of faith. It’s really when those beliefs get sent to me by Facebook friends (i.e. virtual strangers) wanting me and my Buddhist self to join a group called “Say no to PC and keep the Christ in Christmas” that I twitch a little bit.

“Learn not the way of the heathen“, indeed.

Anyway, Fear Not! I’m circling around to my point…. (begin awkward segue)

Yesterday I was watching the TV show Cops. We have a similar show here in the UK called “Street Crime UK” as well as another one called “Road Wars”. Actually, I think there’s at least four or five shows. If that’s not enough reality for you, there’s also “Paramedics”, “The Real ER” and “999 Emergency”. (For some reason I have yet to fathom, we have “treble nine” where in the states it’s 911.)

In this episode, a guy who had been homeless for 6 years was chased down by police for “stealing” money out of a fountain in front of a Las Vegas hotel. When caught, the guy was humiliated. He appeared to be about 40 or 50, and he said he did it most nights, because he had to eat and he refused to beg and he didn’t want to steal.

The cop turned to this guy and said, “Well, we appreciate that. Begging is illegal in Vegas, plus there’s nothing I hate more than being on holiday and seeing beggars everywhere.” (Let me pause for a moment while that sinks in.) And, no, the cop did not notice the look on the guy’s face when he said it. (The look said something like “What the fuck is a holiday?”) He just continued to scold the guy, then forced him to throw the money back into the fountain and sent him on his way with a stern warning saying, “If you do that again, you’ll be arrested.”

So, colour me surprised when 10 minutes later he gets a call that another cop has caught the guy in another fountain. He rushes to the scene, claps the guy in irons (still scolding, mind you), and leads him to the squad car. Not really considering that at least in jail the guy will get a meal and a roof for the night, which is probably not the worst thing that happened to him that day. (I’m guessing getting filmed stealing nickels to buy food is higher up on the list.)

Now, I don’t have my head in the clouds. I do understand why Vegas hotels don’t want their fountains full of vagrants. It does make people uncomfortable. It should make people uncomfortable, but that’s another story. Commerce happens, and I do get it.

What I do not get is this…  tourists have thrown this money away. You know what would really be cool? Is if the hotels would get some maintenance guy in waders to go in and sweep that money up, and give it to the Salvation Army. That way they’d not have tramps making their guests thing twice, and they’d get to do something for the community in the process.

Oh wait, feeding the poor is illegal in Vegas. Apparently feeding them only encourages them. And we don’t want to encourage anyone, do we?

I swear to ceiling cat, this is why I sorta hate Christmas. Let the grinching begin.