Sometimes being a Good Samaritan – someone who helps out a person in need – just doesn’t seem to pay off.
I was at my non-Reveille job (which I have because hardly anyone can survive on a student journalist’s pay), which is at a local church, last week when a Good-Samaritan-gone-wrong incident occurred.
I was in the church office when a woman entered.
She said her car was running on empty, and she would appreciate it if someone would follow her to the gas station to make sure she would make it there safely.
I asked if she needed money, and she said no. She just wanted someone to follow her to the corner station.
So being the Southern gentleman I attempt to be, not to mention the church employee I am paid to be, I told the lady I would follow her.
But something about the whole situation felt weird I wasn’t sure why.
When I pulled into the gas station beside her, she got out of the car. I asked if there was anything else she needed.
“Well do you want me to just fill it up?” she responded to my obligatory question. I was confused.
“You told me all you needed was for me to follow you here to see that you’d get here safely,” I said, feeling a little dumbfounded.
“No, I need a tank of gas,” she said matter-of-factly. “My niece has been in a wreck and I have to get to New Orleans to see her.”
What am I supposed to say to that? It was a different story, but one you don’t really want to say no to.
My inner monologue said: “Sorry, I work at a church, and we don’t really like to help people we think are liars.”
That really would have gone over well. I knew I had been had.
“Fill ‘er up,” I said.
Then I remembered how I had put $5 into the gas tank of my own car earlier in the week hoping I could make it to the next pay day.
I had less than $10 in my bank account.
Luckily for her – and the church’s reputation, in a way – I had a church credit card in my pocket from an earlier purchase for the church.
When I got out of my car and swiped the card, I smelled alcohol on someone’s clothes.
I knew it wasn’t from mine, because I generally don’t get trashed before reporting to a job where I have to smile a lot and am surrounded by Bibles and pictures of Jesus.
I didn’t doubt whether the church would OK the purchase, but if they hadn’t, this lady would have been out of luck – or divine intervention – if it was supposed to come flowing down like manna from the Heavens through me to her.
The cost of a fill-up was $12.50. As you noted earlier, that price wouldn’t have gone over well for me at the bank.
“Thanks,” she said coolly after she filled the gas tank up.
“I hope your niece is OK,” I said.
And this is how my inner monologue went:
“And give your niece at Our Lady of Holy Daiquiris Hospital on Bourbon Street a get well card for me.”
Sometimes you just can’t win for losing.
Don’t take Adam too seriously and contact him at [email protected]