Travel Tips

It was raining heavily when our family took a group of guests to San Francisco’s Chinatown in January 2005. Our hall closet had yielded umbrellas and hooded raincoats so that each person had some form of waterproof protection, but there weren’t enough umbrellas to go around.

While our guests browsed through one of the shops on Grant Avenue, my husband went down the street to buy some inexpensive umbrellas he’d seen in another shop window. I waited for him on the sidewalk, sharing an awning with a man with two small dogs on leashes.

As we watched the rain sheet off the edge of the awning, a woman approached us. She was young, pretty, and dressed neatly but too lightly for the weather. She was bareheaded and carried some large plastic bags stuffed with what appeared to be her belongings. I assumed that she, like us, was sheltering from the rain, but she had stopped to admire the dogs. She stroked their heads and scratched them behind the ears.

“You’re getting all wet,” she crooned to them.

“So are you,” observed the dog owner.

“Aw, it’s only water,” she said cheerfully, picking up her bags and walking on.

I thought, What a wonderful attitude! I doubted that I could have maintained that frame of mind if I were homeless on a cold, rainy day.

After my husband returned with the newly purchased umbrellas in a bag, our guests came out of the store, and we continued our shopping. Along the way, we passed the young woman with the bags, who was panhandling on the next corner. She was dripping wet but still had a smile on her face.

“How many umbrellas did you buy?” I asked my husband suddenly.

“Four,” he said. “They were only $3 each.”

I did a quick mental headcount and realized that we had an extra umbrella. “Could I have one of those?” I asked him.

I went back to the young woman, feeling glad that I could offer someone else's daughter some protection from the weather.

“Here’s an umbrella for you,” I said.

The smile left her face. “I don’t WANT an umbrella!” she snapped. Her eyes narrowed, and she snarled at me, “IT’S ONLY WATER!”

As I turned and walked away, I reflected that 1) it’s probably easier to collect “pity” money if you’re wet, and 2) you can’t buy drugs with umbrellas.

As the old saying goes, No good deed goes unpunished.