imagine if everyone.....

.... lived on the street for a week, or even a month. Imagine how our perspective and disgust toward the homeless would change.

Imagine sitting in a restaurant. Eating and sitting with a friend when suddenly you are aware of a homeless person being shown to a table? After being left at the table by the hostess, you notice that everyone else is looking at this lost soul... dressed in dark, ragged smelly clothes. She smells of a combination of urine, dirt, and street filth.

Suddenly she turns and you see her face: distressed and frowning. Skin so dark it looks like a tan honed over weeks on the french or mexican riveria, but you know it is not a tan.

She opens her mouth in a wordless cry, her mouth twisted in what looks like anger, or anguish. Then she turns around and walks out, taking with her the various bags of clothes, cans or bottles. Her perfume lingers in the air, and instantly my "friend" makes a disgusted face and voices her opinion quite loudly for all to hear: Thank goodness she's gone! She stank!!

I told her that she should be more respectful of the homeless, to which she replied with a phrase I won't repeat here. Then I described how in these changing times, anyone could be in her shoes, in her situation... then I asked: If that were me, would you think and treat me the same?

She bounced my comment off her ears without a reply, and just sat there. When the waitress came along and apologized for the "intrusion", my friend spat out that the person didn't belong here and now her appetite was ruined. I did notice my friend had already finished her HUGE salad ~ enough to easily feed four homeless individuals ~ minutes before this woman entered and departed.

What would you do?

If everyone lived on the street just for the experience, you would be surprised and shocked how many eyes would be opened. I would love to see this "friend" living on the street, without a private toilet, no sofa to lie comfortably upon at night to watch an nonexistent television. What would she do with all the personal belongings she normally drags behind her in carts or bags?

What would you do?

I know the "intrusion" of this homeless woman didn't disgust me half as much as the selfish inconsiderate reaction of my "friend" and others who saw her.

PS: This event actually happened, and my "friend" and I were witness as were many others, to the poor homeless woman being seated, then after a few minutes, leaving in haste.