ELP 002: Popcorn Guy

In the Washington I see every day (and have seen pretty much every day I've been in the city over the past 5.5 years), there are no shortages of the following: clueless tourists, scared white people from the exurbs visiting some thing in the city, federal workers, and folks looking for handouts. All four groups annoy me in one way or another, but I've learned coping strategies for dealing with them all. Sadly, the When-In-Rome rule for dealing with the last group is largely to ignore them or say as little as possible to get past them. There's the occassional surprise, like the one I had tonight.

I was standing in Chinatown waiting for the bus to go home, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a guy shuffling toward me. I looked his direction and immediately noticed that he was holding out a popcorn tub from the movieplex down the street and a large soda. He'd occassionally drink from that. You could tell Dude wasn't all there. He had as close to a "kindly" look as I've seen on anyone, completely not threatening, just somewhat vacant. And he wasn't looking for anything from anyone. He was offering me popcorn. Just holding out this popcorn bucket with this really pathetic-looking M&M charcter emblazoned on the side.

Now, my Candy-From-Strangers rule holds hard and fast, even here into my early 30's, so I declined. He shrugged and moved to other folks at the bus stop. One guy did take him up on the offer, they nodded and Popcorn Guy moved on. He held out his bucket to folks coming in and out of Metro, but he didn't have any more takers. So he shuffled off, down 7th Street.

Dude just wanted to share his popcorn.

Maybe I'm being hopelessly provincial about this, but it was, in its own odd, sublime little way, very refreshing.

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, Popcorn Guy: