I remember getting kick out of 7/11 for loitering and waiting for some bros outside sipping a slurpee. This guy walks up to the phone and asks for spare change to make a call. Since I was busted from playing vids I couldn't help him. He proceeded to ask anyone who walked by. Once someone gave him coinage he would put it in the telephone machine and wait for the person who gave the change to move out of eyesight then he would hit the coin return and do the whole thing all over. The guy said he made something like twenty bucks an hour or something doing this. I almost thought I had a new career.
Then this guy who got kicked out of my high school comes up and says he was in some robbery. He said the guy had a shotgun and shot it in the air then put the mouth of the barrel up the highschool dropout's neck. The dropout dude then showed me the burn where the barrel touched his neck.
Man... fun times at the 7/11

The "need bus ticket" scam is actually a time-honored, well-used scam method. I just got hit with a variation while on vacation in Mexico. A man came running up to me at the Chedraui grocery store and asked if I spoke English. I said yes and he said, "Oh, thank God. I'm American from Houston, Texas and my wallet was stolen on the bus last night." Now mind you, he was speaking heavily accented English, but lots of Latino folks live in Texas, so I continued listening to his spiel. "I need $2.50 to get back to my hotel," he said plaintively, lowering his voice. "Please, miss, I'm desperate." I told him I only had my return bus fare of 60 cents and my credit card, but I'd be happy to give him the 60 cents. That's when he got hostile and insisted he needed more because his hotel was one resort town over. I figgered if he was getting hostile, it must be a scam--I mean, if it were me and I really was desperate, I'd take whatever someone was offering in the hopes that they'd realize I was sincere and take me out for a hot meal or something--so I pointed him in the direction of a gaggle of obnoxious, decrepit Americans who were clogging up the line in the Farmacia with endless requests for Lipitor and Viagra. I'm betting he didn't ask them and kept trying to convince me instead because I was a young woman walking downtown alone. And I was wearing a PBR shirt, so maybe he hoped I was drunk, too. That's what I love and loathe about Mexico--there is a new hustle every 10 paces.

I traveled with my family to Denver's International Airport not two weeks ago to pick up my brother for a post holiday visit. Upon our arrival on the upper most parking level, mine eye caught glimpse of at least 5 orphaned luggage carts strewn about the lot. Being of an entrepreneurial spirit (at DIA, you get a quarter back for each cart you return to its docking bay), I directed my family to round up as many carts as possible. We marched into the terminal, each with a cart in tow and reached the baggage claim level where we would be getting quarters for our returned carts. Just as I was about push the first cart in and hear that casinoesque noise of change hitting the coin return, a traveler came up to me and offered two bucks for the cart (it turns out, to release the carts from their docking stations, you pay a $3.75 fee)! I gladly accepted his offer and pocketed my newly made money. Bystanders, upon witnessing the deal, went to my other family members and made similar offers. We walked out of DIA, with parking paid for by cart scalping and a little walk around money to boot!

Since then, I figure should I ever meet the soup line, I'll be “middle manning” carts at DIA (just look for me at the baggage claim in terminal west)!

The "need bus ticket" scam is actually a time-honored, well-used scam method

That's good information right there. Is it anything more complex than just saying you need a bus ticket, so the person will give you more than spare change? I mean, is that really all there is to that scam?

I've been hit up twice with the "I need a bus ticket. If you give me your name and address, I'll send you the money." The first time I was in Portland and my boyfriend gave the guy money and his address. No money ever arrived. The second time I was in Seattle and the pitch was almost verbatim. I don't remember the exact reason they didn't have money with them, but it was related to a job and both swore that they had a stack of cash at home. I didn't give any money to the person in Seattle. I'm inclined to give small amounts of cash when someone asks, but I prefer a simple ask without any lies.

I remember being a young lad living with my bro in Boulder,CO for a spell. Back in the early ninties the place was strewn with lord board sporting free loves, quite different from the upscale, clean srcubbed, Abercrombie and Fitch deuchbags galavanting around nowadays. Don't get me wrong there is still plenty of hemp bolo sporting hairfoots to be found, just seems like not as many as I remember as a youth.
Anyways, one night pretty late I was walking from my bros house to my shitty house after a wine box or two. When this homeless dude approaches me asking for some food. I gladly oblige him seeing as I just stopped at the 7-11 and stocked up on Tootsie rolls. The guy loses his shit, how dare I offer him tootsie rolls when he is so hungry, getting in my face and shit. Well I assured him if he wanted to bang I would bang. What a cocksucker, I got right back up in his face and he was real close to getting "Kubotaned" in the throat. Only in fucking Boulder would you get a homeless person complaining about the food you offered him. Did he fucking think I was going to go get him some beef wellington and a glass of milk? Moral of the story: don't take shit from panhandlers. The only thing they are going to get from me if they come up and wash my windshield at a stoplight without my permission is a moist towelette. Provided there is one in the jockey box. Way to go back and get what was yours Yale. I think you would look quite formidable in a red beret. Take back the night!!!!

Someone who prefers to "live off the land" once told me that social services provide homeless people with sufficient amounts of food, clothing, toothpaste and other non-buzz-inducing items. Usually, panhandlers are shaking you down for $ because they want to party. I think the reason they snap when tootsie rolls or pennies are offered is because they've reached critical mass with their jonesing. Must be market research has shown that people will give more money to someone needing a "bus ticket" than to some crusty old cur holding out a tin can.

that social services provide homeless people with sufficient amounts of food, clothing, toothpaste and other non-buzz-inducing items

There's a big push in downtown Denver to get people to not give out change to panhandlers (most of whom seem to be teenage junkie punk rockers that ran away from the suburbs). Instead you buy these food vouchers that you can give out. Seems like a good idea. I've always been conflicted about my feelings toward giving money to panhandlers. Usually I prefer to give change to buskers or some guy playing guitar on the sidewalk instead of people who directly ask me for it. 'Cuz I'm more likely to want to part with my money if I don't have to hear some bullshit sales pitch first.

My pal Mikey and I were walking up Higgins Ave. one New Year's Eve at a bout 9pm, and this crowd of fellas camped out near the old Smith Drug building gave us a shout, and we gave them the old "Happy New Year to you, too." A few paces later, one of them tugs my coat and says, "Hey, guys, we're trying to get enough together to buy a bottle and celebrate the new year. Can you help us out?" Mike and I figured we were going to spend all our money on booze that night anyhow, so I think we each gave him $5. What the hell.

In NYC, I had my subway routine so down pat that I knew which car to get on and where to stand in that car so that I could be the first guy out and up the stairs at my station. So one day, I'm scooting up the stairs and there's this cat going up in front of me. I thought it was kind of weird that he sort of sidled over in front of me and slowed down so that I couldn't help bumping into him. Then at the top of the first flight of stairs, I notice another dude kinda point at me as I walked by. Up the second flight of stairs and almost to the sidewalk, the first guy stops me and tells me I just knocked his glasses out of his hands and he just paid $45 for them and don't I see this little chip in his new glasses that I caused, blah blah blah. My native reticence under stress served me well in this case. I just stared at him, thinking about how I didn't have any money on me and where is the nearest ATM, etc. Since I wasn't saying anything, he just kept talking, and I noticed he was getting more nervous by the second. The poor fucker was sweating like a whore in church. And I noticed the pointing guy kind of milling around at the bottom of the stairs, and my feeble little mind finally put one and one and one together. I said to him, "OK, I think I'm being scammed, so I'm just going to walk away." I turned on my heels and beat feet down the block, ducking into a bodega and putting a newspaper in front of my face, like I was in some noir movie or something, and waited for them to pass by before I continued home.

Next day, I met a couple I knew on the street. I'm telling them about this shit, and the guy freaked out because the same a-hole had tried to pull the same graft on him. My wife finally believed my story after hearing his, too.

I lived in Eugene, OR for a stint; a place canvased with hippie-meth streetdogs. Though cheesy, a good retort to the persistent, "Can you spare some change" question was, "Change comes from within". Or you can cop to Nibs Knadler's pre-emptive approach of beating said urchins to the punch and asking the for some coin.