I was walking down the sidewalk in my neighborhood just outside of New York, the most populous city in the United States, listening to number-one iTunes single “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem featuring Rihanna and pondering the mind-bending ending of the blockbuster smash box office hit Inception when a man, who was not the same sex as me, considering that my sex is 51 percent of the world’s population, tapped me on the elbow and said something that gave me pause.
“I am unemployed,” the man said.
How different he is from me, I thought to myself, as well as the other 90.5 percent of Americans in the labor force who have jobs, according to June 2010 figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
He continued, “I don’t have any money or a place to live.”
Personally, I had no idea how I would live without my $52,175 in annual household income, most of which I used for shopping and health-related uses, followed by food, rent and improvements to my home. I pity this poor man, I thought. Like 56 percent of Americans, I believe homelessness is the result of circumstances beyond the person’s control and that more should be done to prevent it.
“Can I just have a few dollars to buy a hamburger at McDonald’s?” he asked.
That got me thinking: 47 million Americans eat at McDonald’s each day, so statistically speaking I ate there about once every week. I love their delicious fries but feel bad about myself after eating there because of the fat content of their products.
But I had to get my thoughts together. Would I help this pitiful soul before me? I hesitated.
“I feel bad for you,” I said. “And I’ll probably regret this after I say it, but I think my money would be better spent through reputable charities that can efficiently provide you with food and shelter. I know that has to be an unpopular opinion, but it’s how I feel.”
And just like that, the man snapped up and pulled out a knife!
I never thought this would happen to me. Sure, like 95 percent of everyone I knew, all of whom were very much like respondents to a 2005 Gallup poll, I thought violent crime was a problem of moderate to extreme severity. But also like nearly two-thirds of those people, I thought of my own neighborhood as a safe one where I felt comfortable walking alone at night!
Lucky for me, a police car just happened to be rolling by right at that time. Since I, like 59 percent of everyone else, trust the police a great deal or quite a lot, I flagged the officer down and alerted him to the knife-wielding man in front of me. Once the blue lights came on, the man ran away, leaving me, like 90,543.1 out of every 100,000 people, as someone unaffected by violent crime this year. I was glad the homeless, unemployed man was out of my life, but couldn’t help but feel sympathy for him now that I could no longer see or smell him.
I thanked the police officer, but declined to ride home with him in his car. I had played top-selling video game Grand Theft Auto IV back in 2008, and knew that there was a real danger of someone blowing the vehicle up with a rocket launcher.
Incredibly relieved, I walked the rest of the way to my parked Ford F-150, cranked it and tuned the radio in to a news, talk and information station before shifting to country, and finally adult contemporary. I couldn’t have been more happy to pull into the driveway next to my Toyota Camry and walk into my home valued at $192,400. I said hello to the 2.2 other people in my household, sat back with a Bud Light and watched the number-one show on American television, The Bachelorette.
Life was good. Life was…average.
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