You're Welcome

Thanksgiving is for bunkering down and staying out of the way. When someone says "family orientated," does it mean they take the time to go see their family or does it mean they are actually close to their family? I have friends who are very dedicated to their parents. They exchange phone calls, emails, and sometimes even text messages. I'll glance over at someone's phone and they might have a text message from Mom waiting. What do mothers say? "What's up, how're you?"

Over at my friend's house for the second half of the UMich versus Ohio State game, I spent most of my time talking with his mother. We exchanged personal histories and she gave me insight into the cheapest places to purchase toilet paper in Chinatown. She was also emphatically maternal, insisting on helping me grab a piece of pie, eating some Asian pear, and even offering to make some dumplings. A lot of my time was spent trying to deflect her niceness by repeatedley saying, "No, I'm okay, enough, enough. Thank you, thank you."

I've been told Chinese mothers can instantly tell if you've been raised well. Throw in my middling Chinese skills (always surprising to them) and I guess mothers like me. Or feel sorry.

Afterward, on the short walk over to a cafe, I was bamboozled into giving twenty dollars away. Normally I'm not one for handing over money to the scammers and homeless, but as this guy passed by me, he stared straight into my eyes and said my name. I had my earphones on but I pretty much had to stop. He greeted me warmly and said, "You don't remember me do you?"

Slow head shake. No.

"I used to be the security guy at your building. Who you work for?" Little did he know, I don't work in office buildings. I told him I hadn't worked in a New York office in a decade. He quickly backtracked into a bit about working at my building years ago, and dropped a few other people's names. None of which I recognized but all of whom seemed plausible. For awhile I was trying to figure out if I actually did know this person, or if I was just an uppity asshole for not remembering a door guy.

"I'm telling you man, I never forget a face. That's my great talent. I see someone once and I can recognize them anywhere," he declared. I'm also pretty good at recognizing faces too and this guy's face didn't ring a bell. I was pretty sure at this point I was being scammed. Still, I stood with him for a cigarette as he told me about how his mother committed suicide, his best friend committed suicide, his imaginary family all committed suicide, etc. I nodded along and made the appropriate sounds, knowing exactly where this was going of course: money.

Another few minutes of suicide talk and then he unleashed the homeless sob story about needing a few bucks to get out of the weather. I defused him by saying that I had a few spare bucks to give him. After that we just got friendly. He showed me the black hole where his tooth was rotting, I showed him my three temporary front teeth. I asked him how our fictional co-workers were doing and what they were up to. He provided detailed responses. He made me feel like I had ditched our entire social community when I left that office job. "You just up and left us man!" It was a good time. I mean, I appreciated his performance, especially if he'd somehow managed to find the only "Jon" on the block.

I once laughed long and hard about my gullible friend, who gave fifty bucks to a Canadian stranded in New York City. I didn't laugh because he gave the fake Canadian money, but because he actually expected the money back. "But he took my address and said he'd mail me a check," my friend said defensively.

I can appreciate a good con, can't you?