I started taking care of this woman beggar a few days ago. On the day I met her, I had bought a sandwich from the "bistro" in my workplace building. I had ordered ham and cheese, but he put lettuce and tomato in, and crushed the whole thing (I guess that's the French way of making sandwiches) so it was too incovenient to pick out the lettuce and tomato. Anyway, I didn't like it, so I headed out to go to the nearby Burger King.

On the way out, this woman asked me for some money. I almost never give money, 'cause I don't want to make a donation to a cause I don't support. And buying cigarettes, for example, is a cause I don't support. Usually when a beggar asks me for money, and I offer them food, they refuse the food, so I know they're not starving or anything. Anyway, this woman asks me for money, and I mumble sorry as I walk past, but then remember I have the sandwich. So I stop and turn around and ask her if she wants it. She says yes. The sandwich has a bite out of it already, so I know this is someone who really does need money for food.

Since then, I've bought her a Whopper combo from Burger King, gave her leftovers from my meal at Kojax (I gave her $2 or $3 too, 'cause the meat is rather spicy and she'd probably want a drink with that), and this morning I bought her a box of crackers from Pharmaprix. Hopefully that'll last her the weekend.

I don't see her everyday, and some days I don't see her until after I've finished my lunch break and am already heading back for my office, empty handed, in which case I give her nothing.

Sometimes she seems to have "good" days, where she's cuddling and playing with the black puppy she keeps. Other days, she seems to be shaking from hunger, and screams out pleading for money.

She doesn't seem to ever remember me. Every time I give her something, she thanks me in French first, until I respond in English, then she thanks me again in English.

The most expensive thing I got her was the Whopper combo, at about $5 plus tax, so maybe $6. I make $6 in like half an hour (net, not gross), so it's really a small amount for me, but I hope it makes her day to get a full meal every now and then.

I make significantly more money than I spent, so assuming I can keep this income for the rest of my life, and that my expensives won't suddenly jump up (e.g. have kids), I'm set for life. I've also pretty much got everything I want. I've had every material thing that I wanted for a few years now, which makes it troublesome twice a year for me when I have to think of what gifts to ask for (birthday and Christmas).

When I ask for money, my friends give me nothing. When I ask for nothing, my friends buy me some random gift, which risks creating an awkward situation if I don't really want the gift, and I'm not the type who's gracious enough to hide that fact. So I was thinking maybe this year I could try something different.

I'm asking all my friends to do something concrete to make the world a better place in my name on my birthday (May 26th). It has to be concrete, meaning you have to actually do something, not just think about doing something, or plan to do something. If you don't want to do something that takes a lot of energy (e.g. volunteer work), maybe you can just donate $1 or $5 to a charity or something. Or buy a sandwhich for a beggar.

There are two main objections I can anticipate towards this request of mine. The first is that maybe my friends want to do something for me, and not for some stranger out there. Well, if you do the good deed in my name, and this gets popular, and my name appears in the newspaper as the guy who started "Nebu's day (May 26th)" and all that, then I'll be pretty pleased. Also you're making the world a better place. And I live in it. So I'm benefitting from having the world be a better place.

The other objection I can think of is that there's no real way for me to verify that a good deed was actually done, so maybe my friends will just do nothing. That's fine too. The point isn't to force my friends to do things they don't want to do. I probably won't ask "Did you do something on Nebu's day?" either, so you don't have to worry about feeling pressured to do something just so that you can say that you did something. But if you did do something, and you're feeling particularly proud about it, go ahead and tell me. Maybe I'll post some of the more charming ones on NP.net.

In other news, I invited a cute girl over to my place to watch a movie, and she brought another cute girl with her without my even asking. Hooray for me.