i had forgotten how clever the con artists are round here. had a gent walk up to me on the street and say hello and started talking to me. said he was one of the guys working with our guard peter. funny thing is the night guard at our house is Peter, so he threw me off at first. and as we were exchanging conversation i realized he was throwing back bits of information that i would inadvertantly give out, which to my ears sounded like he knew what he was talking about and that i should know who he was even though i didn’t. i got supicious when he wanted me to follow him to a car so i could help him push start it, and when i said im sure he could find someone else to help him with that, he said no not push i need you to buy me some gas. At this point i pretty much realized he had been working me pretty good, so i was trying to disengage. my problem is that I am ever so polite, so instead of telling him to #$$% off i was making up excuses why i had to leave. there was still a doubt in my mind though as to whether i knew him or no. so i gave him a bit of cash to which he started complaining wasn’t enough and i just finally had enough and walked away. i think i am just gullable and that is written straight across my forehead. part of me does feel the man deserved the cash cause he did a wonderful job of convincing me we knew each other. I also remembered that the same guy hit me up once before on the street with a very similar scenerio. This was months ago. wish my memory had kicked in about five minutes prior to the point it did.

shoeshine guys got a pretty good line as well, but i am on to that one. You walk by and they yell out at you "hey what country did you buy those shoes in?". The first time it happened to me, i was very happy to tell them, mainly because i am a vain person and was proud that someone noticed my excellent shoes. And as i was telling them they came up to inspect and started cleaning and because they have lathered up your shoe you have to sit down and let them shine it, after which they ask you for an outragious sum of money. I was lucky in that i had been getting my shoes shined at a place where they charged me reasonable rates. i had also asked a few folks what the charge should be. Now when this guy shined my shoe and asked me for the outragious sum, i through him a little less than the going rate and walked off. He wasn’t very happy. but at least i had clean shoes. speaking of which i probably should get them shined again.