Strippers, the unanswered questions

So today, like always, I found myself thinking about strippers.

Just kidding, not like always, just like always when I am sick with a head cold & enjoying the remedies of cold & flu drugs.

They say that prostitution is the oldest profession. I don't know how they say that. It's not like you were there nor can you ask your great-great-great grandfather to the power of 20 how often he paid to sleep with a stranger. I'm also pretty sure man needed food more than he needed to get laid. This leads me to believe that we had hunters, harvesters & butchers long before we had prostitutes but alas... if we assume this is true then I'll bet stripping has been around almost as long. Or perhaps as long as dance has been around.

I went to my first strip club when I was 18. Since then I've been to a total of two clubs. The novelty has worn off & aside from seeing a 'touring' stripper that could actually make a career out of their dancing or gymnastic abilities anyway, I have no draw to view anymore. I have however, found myself asking three questions about my experiences, and since you're here anyway, you should know.

1. Strippers with no boobs. WHY?

I might be opening a big can of worms in a 'body shapes' & 'defining femininity/beauty' debate but hell, go ahead & paste your hate messages on my Facebook wall, I'M GOING THERE!

I grew up with many strong, independent & tough women in my life. Most notably MaryAnne who I'm sure could beat up the hulk.

The women had boobs, big ones. And bra sizes you couldn't buy at department stores & breast reduction surgeries.
When I was little I constantly felt like an isolated melon-head because I didn't have those boobs. I would demand bras I didn't need & my little cousins & I would fill them with socks or water balloons (or cantaloupes). It seemed like an eternity before I finally got boobs & could start to feel feminine.


All that said & done I still none-the-less grew up thinking that I had small boobs.
In my head, because the women in my family were so endowed, they were the norm & I was the mutant. I have no idea at what point I had seen enough of the public's boobs at Sherbrook pool or what age that it finally clicked in my head. I had been comparing myself to the minority & in fact,  I was normal & they were the weirdos. That sat well with me.

More to the point, perhaps it's just my bias towards voluptuous, curvy & endowed women, but girlfriend if you want to be someone who is paid to show off her lady-bits, you better actually have some good lady bits!

Maybe it's just me but dammit, why would a lady with a boyish figure think she'd qualify as a good stripper? And more so, WHO HIRED YOU & ARE THEY BLIND? People can play the 'good dancer' card all they want, but if you're a good dancer, there are plenty of Channing Tatum movies for you to dance in. A good dancer alone does not a stripper make.

In my mind when I go & pay good money at Solid Gold, I expect a Marilyn Munroe or a Ditta Von Tease. I suppose that is asking too much because you end up with Courtney Love & Ellen Page on a Krokodil binge.

I no longer scream internally "WHERE ARE YOU BOOBS?" or ask if they've gotten lost on the way to their boy-scout meeting. I just assume that she is saving up for her first pair.

You don't make a blind person a professional driver, you don't make an asthmatic a fire fighter. And if you enjoy going to a strip club to see girls with boyish figures, then I think you are wasting your money.

2. What would your stripper song be?

It would make me so happy if I got comments with the answer to this question.

I always knew mine would be 'Feel it' by Jakalope because I'm freaky like that.
You would not believe how many men I have asked this & gotten not a seconds hesitation with the answer. That makes me proud. Good for you mankind, you watched Magic Mike & now you feel empowered about your helicopter.

As much as there are classics & songs that people will recognize (from Magic Mike) I think your stripper song should really say something about you.
If you are not from the country, don't kid yourself, 'Save a horse, ride a cowboy' is not the stripper song for you. Here are some more ideas for you.

Shaketramp - Mariana's trench

I wanna love you - Akon
Rockstar - Nickleback
I kissed a girl - Katy Perry
Toxic - Britney Spears
Bad Girlfriend - Theory of a deadman
Bad Things - Jace Everett
Bass down low - Dev
Cinema - Skrillex/Electroman
Give me novacaine - Green Day
My humps - Black Eyed Peas

3. Where are the lesbians?

I went to a strip bar on Ellice that can't seem to pick a name & stick to it. At said strip club, they had a raffle for an extra long, super sweaty, extra-sultry lap dance & strippers were selling tickets to the cheap men who weren't going to just pay for the lap dance to begin with. One of said men was my husband.
Not to be outdone by Mr. Ford's stellar generosity towards the working mom's fundraiser, I offered to purchase some of said tickets as well to 'support' the cause. The stripper flatly refused my offer saying "No, I'm not going to make you buy any".

Well EXCUUUUUUSE ME! I guess I'm not worthy of a lap dance because... because what???

Then I got to thinking about it, I've never seen what I would think to be a lesbian in a strip bar.
Now please don't go on saying that I'm stereotyping the outward appearance of lesbians & that there were probably some but I assumed their straight.

I think that most people have a general sense for that type of thing by observing appearances, physical cues, eye contact, tendencies etc & I think I have a great sense of whether someone is gay or straight & I have never seen a lesbian in a strip club. Why is that? Is that not an ideal place to meet a (normally) attractive, sexually open minded woman? Fill me in ladies!

Conclusion:

Go away cats this post was supposed to be about strippers not about you!

Mr. Ford speaks

Greetings fellow bloglodytes from around the world, including Venezuela and The Philippines. I am the mysterious Mr. Ford and will first need to set the record straight. All stories about me in this blog up to date are all heavily exaggerated for entertainment value.  I am actually super smart, funny, responsible, nice-smelling and cool. However, the picture of me eating chicken wings with sauce all over my face is 100% legitimate.

When she isn’t crouching or hiding, our favourite ginger is often watching one of her favourite shows, Sex and the City.  

Since I spend a lot of time with her, I am subjected to watching the show with her. I’d like to think that I’m part of a large group of men that have to put up with Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte.  Of course, I could be wrong and will get weird looks in the locker room at the gym from now on but when I’m sitting there watching SATC with the wife, I think of all of the other guys being subjected to the same treatment and don’t feel so bad.  For the guys out there, it’s like when you’re at Victoria’s Secret and you see another guy standing beside a fitting room, also holding a purse, and you give them a nod of sympathy as if to say “Good job, soldier. We’re in this together.”  

  

Now, at first, I was pretty opposed to the idea of watching such a dumb, girly show and put up a pretty big fight for the remote. Over time, the fight became a civilized protest, which slowly became a disapproving groan, which eventually became a question about whether the episode was before, during or after Charlotte’s marriage to Trey McDougal.

Since I used to complain a lot about watching Sex and the City, the wife LOVES to point out any moment when I appear to be enjoying the show or if I fail to stifle a laugh.  I’m only human!  Even Sarah-Jessica Parker is funny sometimes even if you need to sit through a day-long SATC marathon on Cosmo TV. 

Considering the name of the show, there are maybe one or two instances of sex in each episode, if that.  False advertising?  I’m getting a whole lot more “City” than “Sex”. 

This show also seems to follow the same pattern that most shows fall into. The main characters aren’t devastatingly good looking but every week they have guys tripping over one another to talk to them and possibly bring the episode rating to 18+. The weirdest thing is that it actually works a lot of the time!!! These are adult, human females and they’re agreeing to have sex with adult, human males.  Sorry, HBO, but you’ve lost me with your bizarre fantasies.  That’s just not how things go down.

There are a few reality shows on Playboy TV where they get a few guys and a few girls together in a house with the goal of them having sex in some form or another and even then it doesn’t happen most of the time. The realest part of SATC is when the 4 middle-aged women go out to lunch and discuss their fears of dying alone and not being able to find a good man in New York because the good ones are either married or gay. 

 

“My name is Abdul…. Like Paula.”

PSA #2 - BEARS

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I grew up spending my weekends & summers in a small cottage with no bathroom in the woods with all of the creepies & crawlies. I do not have an aversion to animals big or small.

Recently though, I have become a victim of a sinister mind control conspiracy involving highly evolved bear psychologists. Why? Who knows. They are probably using my vegetarianism, animal activism & general compassion for animals to their advantage. The bears have a message & I am not yet sure if it's world domination or just a nudge to "Get the fuck away from my berries".

Parental unit MaryAnne always liked bears, specifically grizzlies. I will always remember the vast amount of discovery channel bear documentaries I watched growing up.
To be fair I watched a lot of animal documentaries in general... I'll never forget crying watching a pack of mean camels gang-rape a lady camel with a baby & thinking "OH MY GOD CAMELS STAHP! MAKE IT STAHP!" But there were a lot of bears.

We used take the big, brown van over to the dump at the lake & watch the black bears chew the heads off of barbie dolls. Just sitting there shinning our headlights on the bears. Bears don't give a shit.

Occasionally we'd come to the lake & there would be a bear trap on the foot trail across from our cabin. Once the bear came in to our yard from behind the outhouse & proceeded to climb the birch tree, flap his big bear paw across the bird feeder to knock it down & run his bear fingers across the feeder to collect & eat sunflower seeds. Another time the bear lifted the lid off of the barbecue & licked the meat juices off the grill.

Following these events, MaryAnne collected bear brochures to research how to not get eaten by a bear. She spent much time instructing a solemn little ginger girl how to make herself seem bigger & scarier than the bear (????) We spoke about how you would be likely to smell the bear before you see the bear & that you run like hell when you see a baby bear because momma will be close by & mama is a psycho.

One day on a canoeing trip with MaryAnne & MaryAnne's sister, we were paddling up the river minding our own business when the littlest Berenstein bear jumps off a rock & doggy paddles across the river directly in front of us. We scream at each other to paddle & to hurry & in a panic, we end up back paddling ourselves right to the shore of where the baby bear jumped & basically presented ourselves to mama bear with a side of BBQ sauce. Luckily/sadly for little Berenstein bear, no mama came to eat us.

I haven't seen any notable live bears since then, but they still will not let me out of their grasp.

For the past 5 or so years I've been dreaming about bears. I'll always be in the forest & come across a big mean bear. I'll run away but no matter where I turn, another bear will be coming out of nowhere to high-five the initial bear & gang-gobble-me-up.

The pseudo-Freud dream dictionaries all say different things about the presence of a bear in a dream.
Some say it means the cycle of life, Independence, overwhelming obstacles. Others note financial loss. Even suggesting bear is a play on 'bare' which denotes vulnerability. Basically, you suggest an idea or an emotion & that's what bears signify.

On the positive side, there was about a week where I become obsessed with bears waving:

On another positive side, there's this sneezing panda bear:

Then...on the negative side, there's a new found perma-fear of bear attacks like the ones CNN is reporting on today:

People who didn't listen to Rebecca

Of these pictures of a bear attack up north:

And finally... there's Mister Ford, who has gifted our entire family with a bear sub name.
He refers to himself as 'Huckleberry-bear'. The ferret is a 'little Ferry-bear', the cat is 'Bobert-the-bear' & so on & so forth.

With this overwhelming evidence I have no choice but to conclude that the bears have some mind-bullshit going on in my head for their bear tests.

Just when I thought I might be going a little batty, more evidence brings me right back to reality:

Look at this bear in my bed!

Then I get temporarily moved to another building at work & who should be here ruining my productivity:

Then I get a sweet tooth at work, what should be available to quench it!?!?

And these pictures are just the conclusive evidence. Who else knows what the bears have done without getting caught. All those things I blamed on the dogs.

 
Bears are real. Bears are right outside our front doors. We should be making films about bears getting caught in tornadoes & killing Tara Reid!The sooner we accept this & start to really fear them, the sooner we can learn to protect ourselves.

Look what this freaking bears did to this car:

Take cover. You have been warned.

Some *other* things for the people on Maury to do

I watch a lot of Maury.

Maury is sometimes all that can calm my neurotisism & anxiety. A lot of the time I just have it on for the white noise, habit & routine. Other times I pay attention to the stories, am entertained by the ironic jibbering & plot skimming.

Sometimes I just feel reassured to watch people out there with way more personality problems than me. It's kind of like hanging around a hospital when you're casually sick or a seniors home when you feel like you're getting old.

What concerns me about Maury is all the poor little babies whom, without some miraculous intervention, will surely grow up to be the product of their environment.
It's like when they play the 'wild & crazy teen girl' themed shows where the moms come in at their wits end. 

Bless their hearts for having the balls to come on national TV but girlfriend, I got some questions for you that the Maury producers don't seem to want to ask.
What do you do for a living? Where do you live? At what age did you have your children? How many children do you have & most importantly, wheres your baby's father!?!?!
In the eternity that I've been watching Maury I can count on one hand the number of dads coming on with their wild, crazy & out of control teens!

In any case, I feel it comes down to a lot of 'accidental' pregnancies. And it pains me to use that word because as liberal as I am, I don't believe that there are very many situations that constitute a baby being created by 'accident'. You 'accidentally' had sex with your mother's brother's girlfriend. We 'accidentally' ended up in the same room without any pants on. We didn't have a choice!

After careful analysis & soul searching, I've thought of a way that I could help to end accidental pregnancies. Before I could do that, I had to realize the problem & what was causing them. The problem is.. boredom.

My more educated counterparts might say that it's a lack of self-control, forethought, education & resources, cycle of poverty etc etc... but come on now, I don't want to sound like I'm stereotyping here, but when it comes down to it I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that the majority of the men & women on Maury are unemployed. That frees up a good 9-10 hours a day when you factor in travel time. That coupled with lack of income means that there is little money to entertain oneself with.
I've concluded that all these Maury babies are being created because sex can be fun & it can be free.

For your consideration Maury, I have created a list of free, enjoyable, sex-free activities for you to suggest to your guests. You can thank me later.

1. A good, long, stretch.
2. Filing ones nails
3. Going for a brisk walk
4. patting a cat or dog
5. Reading a Berenstein Bears book from the library
6. Writing a short story
7. Taking a hot bath
8. Volunteering at a school
9. Running through a neighbour's sprinkler
10. Talking to your neighbour about your shared interests
11. Cutting out a bazillion coupons like the women on TLC until the store has to pay out your overage in gift cards
12. Building a fort out of sheets
13. Jumping on your bed
14. Giving yourself a romantic foot massage
15. Making a craft from a toilet paper roll

They really should have some kind of a guest relations consultant & it really should be me. People might say I am judgmental but if you have been on Maury 18 times trying to find the fathers of your 6 children, girlfriend you are not being judged enough!

Tips for reducting costs & stress when planning a wedding

As previously mentioned I know a lot of people planning their wedding right now. I know from personal experience that many brides will want to do all the research & organizing themselves. I get that, this is your special day. Make every last detail your own. What I would like to offer is some things that I wish I had done looking back & also share some tips for what really contributed to the success of my own wedding, starting with:

Setting a number:

Not a guest list number (at least not yet) but a number you are comfortable spending on this day.
Figure out how much you'll be able to put away monthly, or per pay cheque towards the wedding to help you decide on a reasonable date for the wedding.
If friends & family have already offered financial help, include that but I wouldn't include a number that you expect to make on a social or any other estimated gifts. If the money does come in, great & you'll be in even better financial shape.

I think that couples usually end up doing the opposite of this, buying first & seeing how the costs have added up later. I find this impulsive & with this method I feel like money could run out awfully quick.

Pick a logical number based on how much time you have before the big day & how much you're able to set aside. From there, assign a budget for the the ceremony venue, reception venue, food, alcohol, officiant, flowers, dress, tuxedos, jewellery, bridal party gifts, music, decorations, photos, video, hair, make-up, shoes, stationary, favours, cake, guest book, honeymoon, transportation, rings, veil & anything else you might want or need.

Pick a theme with obvious colours:

The theme for my wedding was peacocks, however you can only find so many peacocks (and the zoo won't rent theirs). So as a last case resort, ensure that your theme has vivid & obvious colours that you could use to keep the theme going. I.E. of course the people we hired to produce our chair covers didn't have peacock patterns or brooches, but they did have royal blue sashes.

Wedding Party:

Don't eff this up. Choose REALLY close friends or family. People who make your life easier & not more stressful because personalities quirks tend to get amplified under pressure

Explain to them what you would ask of them as a member of the wedding party & what kind of a price range you'd be looking at as far as attire.
I've had friends with bridesmaids dropping out after months of planning because they couldn't finance a $300 dress (along with costs that can be acquired from throwing a bachelorette party, a wedding shower, buying gifts etc). You might sound maniacal to your friends at first but better to sound crazy from the get-go than go bat sh*t when you're out two members.

Don't scrimp on the guest list:

Getting a large group of people together is hard enough. I will ALWAYS be a strong advocate of inviting everyone you want to be there, even if it means having to save-up longer. In my family I've seen how upset people get if only aunts & uncles are invited & not cousins & then entire branches of the family 'boycot' the event. Save yourself the drama.

Think about things you can make instead of buying:

But don't go so overboard that you stretch yourself too thin.
Homemade aspects of a wedding make things so personal & add character to a wedding. Think about what you could produce as a favour, a centrepiece, a decorator, as gifts for your bridal party or even being your own florist or caterer.

Re purpose:

Trust me, I'm no hippy. Just cheap.
Think of ways that you could re-use or re-purpose something to reduce costs or add character to your wedding.
Most people would not get married in their mother's dress, but considering that veils these days are between $150.00-$400.00, why not use your mom's veil? you can easily cut off any tacky detailing & sew-on your own or hire a seamstress to do it for you.
Another great idea to get the most of your flowers if to make sure the ceremony flowers get shipped over to the reception venue. I spent a fair bit of money an gorgeous blue orchid pew clusters. I then had my set-up & take down crew drive them over to the reception venue & use them as decorations for the mic stand, the bar, cake table etc.

Stationary:

Most stationary people will give you a better rate the more items you hire them to make. This will also ensure that your theme stays consistent across the board. Think about invitations, RSVPs, envelopes, favour tags, wine labels, table numbers, seating chart, menu, name cards & thank-you cards.

Personalizing your ceremony:

Your officiant should be able to present you with some good options but look online for traditions of different cultures & see if they resonate with you.
If you don't have an officiant in mind & don't like the idea of hiring a stranger, Manitoba vital statistics can grant a license either on an annual basis or just a day pass. Ensure that whomever you'd like to do this for you is prepared for public speaking & has a resume, references & can write well-thought-out answers to their mandatory questions. As with all things government related, allow a lot of time for processing.

Know your DJ:

Don't consider your music a detail. I feel that the music can make or break the atmosphere of your wedding.
I went as far as to write a list of songs that I expected to have played at my reception after feeling like a previous DJ we hired did his own thing & didn't listen to what we had asked for.

Make sure your DJ is catering to you, your friends & your family. My favourite weddings are a mix of traditional Manitoba social music, classic dance songs, top 40 with a few of the couple's favourite songs thrown in the mix.

Speeches:

If you're getting married, you'll need a few. At your social, rehearsal dinner & at the wedding (your vows if you're choosing to write your own as well!) Make jokes (people have to laugh, it's your wedding). Think of all the people who have contributed time or money towards this wedding & thank them for it.

Make schedules & to-do lists:

People will offer to help out with your big day. The problem is that a lot of things have to be left to the very last second & it's easy to forget that they need to be done. I.E. if you plan on setting-up/decorating your reception venue yourself, there will likely be another event the night before which restricts you from being able to do things in advance.
Make a list of all the things that need to be done (especially the day of) & let people who offer to help (bless their hearts) choose what they would be willing to take on. Don't be afraid to micro-manage. People in the industry expect it & after you've just dropped tens of thousands of dollars on one day, you're going to want it to go seamlessly.
Print out schedules of where everyone should be at what time & hand them out to your VIPs. That way there'll be no excuse if your florist or caterer is running late & you are free to punch them in the face for ruining your day.

 

Have a tool chest:

The day-of have someone carry: hairspray, Tylenol, bobby pins, a sewing kit, deodorant, tampons, glue for eyelashes & nails & sunscreen. No hot messes at your wedding sista!

Don't forget to plan for the finishing touches:

Buying a necklace or a bra in real life is peanuts. Buying anything related to the wedding industry is insane. All of the prices are jacked up but unless you plan on making your own veil, some of these expenses are unavoidable. Make sure that you've allocated yourself funds for the details I.E, shoes, a bra, jewellery, a hair piece, manicures & pedicures.

TIP!:

In Winnipeg, unless otherwise specified, tipping is customary (so strange how our society works-how are people supposed to know when to tip or not!).
Tips are generally expected from bartenders, drivers, waitstaff, hairstylists, entertainers & make-up people. I don't necessarily agree with this practise but that's a blog for another day. At present time, remember to not be a jerk & tip. To make life easier, entrust a man (or someone in a tuxedo!) with marked enveloped that contain the tip money for each of the recipients along with envelopes for any last minute 'day-of' payments (limo companies will usually take a deposit & expect you to pay the rest on the day of. Hair stylists, make-up professionals & entertainers are other standard 'pay once service is rendered' professionals).

Sign-up for the magazine:

www.weddingsinwinnipeg.ca Say what? A free magazine about weddings/venues/suppliers in this city? This magazine is a dream come true. Sign-up & use the magazine to draw inspiration and/or find suppliers. At the very least, allow it to get you pumped for your own wedding!

Happy planning!

People with no right to your money asking for your money

A whole week with no blog gee whiz!

In all honesty, work is a rampage right now & I have negative time at home with renovating our home & looking for a new one. Also, it was our two year wedding anniversary last week! I know, I know, lucky Mr. Ford that I have the patience to tolerate him for so long.
Best of luck to all the brides planning their own weddings this season. Don't go broke! Maybe I'll write a wedding planning advise column in a future post...

I did manage to get out this weekend on Friday night with the lovely maid of honour & the Mister.
We were headed to the exchange district to have birthday drinks with another bride-to-be. I'm not going to go in to great detail about the encounters on the half an hour walk there, but I will say that they included me calling the cops on a booty-short girl walking down Portage offering to sell weed to every young person she came across, ourselves included (Do I look like a stoner to you? And if so(?) what makes you think that I want your dirty street weed?)
Also included, the very attractive maid of honour having someone yell "YOUR SISTERS HOT!" at her, which seems like an odd thing to say to someone you don't know.
And finally, there was a young man a block away from Whiskey Dix yelling at cars & getting in to a fight with his shirt. To his credit, he shut-up when we walked by.

We had a fun night but Mr. Ford was crying about having to work the next morning so we left about 12:30. This is where the rant really commences.

At Portage & Main we came across a woman who appeared to be in her late 20s or early 30s.
She stopped us, and as normal people would do given they just got stopped by a complete stranger, we kept a safe gap between us. This lady was not one of those hobbling half dead zombie bums that will mutter something unintelligible about needing change. This one was a girthy young lady who could probably do some damage if she so chose.

Girthy bum started our chat by rambling that she promised she wasn't crazy & that she never does this, she's just not the type of person.

She then spent a couple of minutes criticising the 'look' maid-of-honour was giving her. Girthy bum believed that 'the look' was inappropriate & that maid-of-honour was judging her based on that look that she had already received ten times that night. 'The look' by the way was blank, with a warranted touch of impatience at that point.

After Girthy bum was done 'breaking the ice' with her random coke rant about 'a look' which she had apparently viewed ten times before so she might have had it confused for 'a human face', she finally proceeded to inform us that:

A-Her friends had taken her out for the night.
B-Her friends had left without her (maybe after she gave them a funny 'look')
C-She was exactly $12.00 short for cab fare home.
D-She had already asked cab drivers (other working people) for a ride but they 'Didn't want to help anybody out'.

She then offered a few seconds of awkward silence because she didn't want to come right out with it & ask for what she could have asked us for 5 minutes ago minus the story.

She then went on to further comment on 'the look' we were giving her (At this point possibly the look of 'Oh you poor little victim, here let me empty my bank account in to your pocket because you made  a bad series of decisions & someone else should bail you out'). Following this, was another shpiel of how she wasn't drunk or crazy.

In an effort to prove to us that she was just a one-time-bum & not a career-bum, she then:

A-Pointed to her feet to show us what she claimed to be $200.00 shoes,
B-Referenced her 'fancy' newer Samsung cellphone,
C-Stated that she just wanted to get home to her little girl.

Great. Lay it on thick there lady with more expensive nails than mine. Are you sure that's all? Don't you have a sick grandma you need to buy a plane ticket to visit? How about your cat that just got run over by a car & you can't afford to pay the vet to save it's life?

Mr. Ford must have been on the same mind track. Being that Madame Girth had a Guess purse & being that she had just explained to us that she was a rather wealthy bum, he very respectfully suggested that she go to the bar we were just in as they were still open & had an ATM machine. This is probably my favourite excuse yet:

"That'd be great if I wasn't getting paid until next week."

Funny, I'm not getting paid until next week either yet I still seem to be a good candidate for paying your way.

We respectfully declined helping her & were upset about the encounter all the way home.

I started to imagine what I would do if I was without a ride home.

First thing that comes to mind would be calling someone on my fancy cellphone & apologising profusely to the person I would have woken up.

If I should have become stranded before 1:30, I would know that buses are still running. If I didn't know if they were running or where to catch one, 311 operates 24 hours a day & 7 days a week to tell me so.

I would find an ATM & take out $20.00 because I would never allow myself to have $0 in my bank account. If I ever did, I'd eat the overdraft fee (which is waived in a lot of banking plans anyway).

All in all, I am pretty sure I would rather walk for 3 hours than guilt someone else in to paying for my bad decisions.
All of that being said though, I do worry because I know that purses get stolen, cars get towed & unexpected situations happen. If there was a way of telling that this person actually lost their wallet or get mugged, I would be happy to help out, but the criminals out there are sophisticated & you can't tell. The many people who make lying an art are really ruining it for the few victims who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In conclusion, as panhandling is not illegal, I am going to do the bums of Winnipeg a favour & offer you some advice for how to get something from me:

1. If you are hungry, ask for food not change.
2. If you need a ride, ask for bus fare, not change
3. Don't smoke when you are asking for money. I can't afford to smoke & neither should you.
4. If someone gives you money, don't ask for more. There's very few things I can think of more douchbag-gy than that.
5. Don't ask for a specific amount of money. You don't have the right to decide what other people will choose to give as charity/drug money

And finally:

6. If you are trying to buy weed, be up front about it. I won't give you any money to support your addiction, but people will respect you more for your honesty & you won't completely lose every ounce of your dignity.