Cynicismless in Seattle

Posted by Cynical Sarah on March 12, 2010

Anyone who’s walked around in downtown Vancouver knows the city has it’s share of homeless and crazy people begging on corners and walking the streets. I think it has something to do with the mild temperatures making it ideal for people to be out all year round.

Most of the time, they’re pretty harmless. It’s sad to see them, some have obvious drug or alcohol issues, but they stick to they give their plea and then give a “have a nice day” in true Canadian fashion.

Occasionally you find one that’s not quite all there and is a little more scary. I must look like an easy target, because I’m often the one a crazy person strikes a conversation up with on transit. I’m also the sucker on the street who falls for the “Do you speak English?” line. That’s the one time a crazy caught me walking and got me to stop. Then when he launched into his spiel for money and I turned him down, he started yelling and swearing as I walked away.

It’s not an easy thing to learn coming from the “country,” but you just have to keep walking and not take it personal.

It turns out that same principle applies when you see someone else going through the same thing. It’s so normal, it doesn’t even phase you. It’s not a situation where you rally to help a fellow person who’s being accosted – as long as there’s no actual physical contact anyway. I’d like to think if said crazy homeless man had actually gotten physically violent the friendly Canadians around me would have done something.

But I digress … there is a point in here somewhere that I’m going to make.

I figured a big city like Seattle would be pretty much the same. Granted, we’re actually staying in a burb on the outskirts of the big city, but it’s still got that part-of-a-big-city feel, especially right off the highway here.

On my way back to the hotel tonight, I stopped to get a little dessert. Troy gets to spend half the night playing video games with his buddies; I get a cinnamon roll with caramel and pecans while I can watch anything I want on TV and read a magazine.

As I was leaving the restaurant with my to-go dessert, there was a man outside the door standing on the sidewalk. Worn-through clothes, disheveled hair and beard, and several garbage bags full of some sort of “treasure” – it wasn’t hard to put a stamp on that one. In true Vancouver fashion, I kept walking toward my car without a second look, and in true Sarah-has-a-crazy-magnet-in-her-pocket, he started talking to me. Or I guess “at me” is more accurate, since it appears I entered in mid-conversation.

He’s got a few choice words to say about the waitress inside, mixed with other thoughts I could only guess at since they barely fluttered on the edge of being real sentences.

But I ignored him and got to my car and got in and made sure to lock the doors right away. He didn’t follow me to the car, but he was walking away from the sidewalk into the road by the time I was safely tucked in my seat again. But when I started to back out, there was a different man standing in the street watching crazy homeless man walk away. I watched him to make sure he got out of my way when I backed up, and then as I pulled through the lot he waved me forward and asked if I was ok.

The manager of the restaurant had actually come out to make sure I was ok and then offered to walk my car to the light to make sure I got going ok without any more run-ins with crazy homeless guy.

Normally the cynical part of me would kick in and point out all the reasons this guy would do this for his own gain. But there really weren’t any this time other than he was looking out for a customer – a customer who only spend $5 to buy a couple cinnamon buns.

I live in the land of friendly Canadians, but it took returning to American soil to remember what it’s like when honest and decent people look out for each other.

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