The man on the Wawa Sidewalk

It is crazy how the world works. People absolutely love to say they are a “good” person, or they want to do “good” for the world, but never want to support someone when they struggle, which is very ironic in my eyes. People tend to start out low, or start out struggling for money, living in not-the-best areas, and overall just don’t have it a hundred percent great. But once they work hard, go to school, and bring their lives together they basically want to throw money in every other area of luxuries instead of the best luxury of them all­—the people. And don’t get me wrong, ethics and being ethical is very hard to do mainly because everybody is categorized. And boy oh boy, taking ethics in college is no walk in the park either. But just think about it, everybody you pass on the street can be the next Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or Steve Jobs, but we still use ignorance to assert dominance over people who don’t got it as good as others. Yes, there are people that are “fake” homeless people, but it is still nice to give a dollar or two to anyone. And with that being said, I, myself have a different viewpoint in the world.

While other college students rather party, sleep in, talk to their crush, and try to get into every fraternity house they can, I really just want to meet as many people as possible. I like to learn about different cultures and different people’s viewpoints. If I was a fighter in a video game such as Mortal Kombat, I would have an all-around fighting style because that’s just how I am. I’m a people person and it even got to the point where my psychiatrist told me that I am very good at helping others gain benefits, but not myself. In which this statement I agreed with, however, being the nice guy was just in my DNA. My past girlfriends cherished my niceness, my teachers loved how I was just so generous. One time my generosity helped me on a nice spring day all from a trip to Wawa.

For more than a year, I have worn my grandfather’s cross, and like every person, I have always had questions about faith and the belief of religion. I had a friend who I used to play basketball with, whose father was a priest and they helped me throughout the days to find the answers I was looking for. At the time it was my last resort, my life seemed like it was falling apart. My girlfriend dumped me on my birthday, I was on the verge of losing my job because of basketball, and my coach was an absolute a**hole who played the political game rather than taking the players he had and making them better. For the first time in my life I felt like, I needed god.

And when I decided to work for God, God decided to work for me.

After a week, I started a new job and had numerous new passions: I joined the piano club at school, started investing, and I would religiously work out to get rid of my post-girlfriend dadbod (guys know what I’m talking about). I was just in awe about this one-week span. I started to realize that when I am productive, that’s when I am the happiest. This showed in my household too. I started doing chores without my Mom or Stepdad asking, and I was working twice as hard in school. If that was me from a week before, I probably would have been sleeping in that class like a sloth in the Amazon forest. I was truly getting myself together and I really started to believe in having purpose and having faith in myself.

Flash forward a couple months on a fine Tuesday afternoon; at this point I got accepted into seven out of the nine universities I applied to. The previous weekend, me and my friends celebrated my decision to go to West Chester University. It was an exciting time with graduation, prom, and all of these mixed emotions about leaving our high school friends and taking the next chapter. I was ready to graduate from Middletown High school. Since we were not doing anything important, I pull out my phone and see that my boss wanted me to come into work two hours early. Knowing me, I wanted the extra hours so I told them that I will indeed come in to work a tad bit early from usual. After class, I went home; Since I only had three classes that day due to work study program that my high school offered.

I went on my daily Wawa trip before work. As usual, the parking lot was packed with every car in Middletown. People getting gas and old men walking in to get their ninety-nine cent pretzels and their daily pack of cigarettes, as well as, the kids who skipped school to go hoop getting their Gatorade and usually some small packs of candies like skittles and mike’n’ ikes. Most of the time I would see some friends who I knew from another school or from Middletown that would usually scream out “Yo bul” or “Yerrrrrrr”. It is a really funny way to talk, and a lot of people in this area, loved to talk like they lived in inner-city Philadelphia.

But this time, when I turned around, I saw someone I never seen before.

“Hey man Imma need you to do me a favor,” the man said.

Not really liking how he approached me I asked him “What’s up?”

He proceeds to get his phone out and shows me Cash app on his phone.

In my head I was thinking “Ok? That’s a weird way to beg,” but shifted my head up as he proceeded to talk.

“So basically man, I lost my wallet and I live in Wilmington,” he said.

“I have $7 on Cash-app and I need two more dollars to get on the bus”.

“Did you ask anybody in the store if they saw

any type of wallet or anything that can hold money?” I questioned.

I asked him this since I was attempting to be nice, but at the same time make sure I am not getting scammed. Using my retail experience of three years, I know when to indicate if someone is attempting to scam you and I was able to catch a lot of people in the act. From working at Walmart to stocking shelves and running the register at Harbor Freight, I was very accustomed to asking these types of questions so my attitude towards it was clear and concerning. I was about to walk away because I needed to go to work; I had priorities and now was not the time to have me wait. But as I went into Wawa,

he begged to me one more time “Please man, I need to visit my mom in the hospital”.

So, I look down, thinking about my next move. I reach down to get my wallet from the side pocket of my work jeans and check for any spare change. And just out of the corner of my eye,

I had a one-dollar bill and 4 quarters.

I took it out of my wallet and handed the money to he and exchanged numbers with him just in case he got lost. I got my Wawa sandwich and went to work. I didn’t really think anything of it; it was just another day of me being nice to someone in my opinion. I went throughout my day like nothing happened. I went to work and then went to the gym later that night.

Two days later I got up and looked at my phone as I usually do for a daily routine. I see that I got a text message from an unknown number. Usually it is some advertisement or something to do with a billing plan or whatever, but this time it was something different.

I sat there and read the message

“Hey what’s good man, sorry I got a new phone. without you I wouldn’t of have gotten to the hospital to see my mom I got an internship at that same hospital and life is looking great I Apple Paid you $25

He had one last line in his text message that was a little spaced out from the rest

“I will never forget that moment man thank you,”

Being generous would always have a different feeling after that moment.