» Cringe!

Tramp related cringe...
I was out with my college friends, having just met them at the start of my course, when we stopped off at a cash machine which a few of us needed to use.

I left the small group of five or six people with whom I was standing and went to get some cash. While I was at the machine a highly dishevelled looking tramp came up and mutteringly asked me for some money. I muttered the obligatory, "sorry mate..." back and he wandered off.

Forgetting all about the tramp, I then checked my balance and found, much to my delight, that the maintenance grant from my sponsoring employer which I had been waiting for had finally been paid into my account since the last time I'd checked it, meaning I would, after all, be able to eat/pay my rent/etc.

Having got my cash out I went rushing back to my group of friends and, grinning in an over-the-top way, though I'd amuse them and tell them about my new found solvency at the same time by shouting, "Guys! I'm really rich!"

Strangely, this didn't meet with the amused response I'd been expecting, in fact my friends instead looked at me with embarrassment approaching horror. It was at that point I realised that there was one more person in the circle than there had been when I left…

"So you're really rich then, are you?" Asked the tramp, with a definite undertone of affronted anger. "Err.....yes" I replied turning a beautiful shade of purple and staring at the ground while my friends all did the same. "Can I have some money then?" asked the tramp reasonably. "Err....no?" I mumbled under my breath before beating a very hasty and humiliated retreat.

We walked the rest of the way to the restaurant in silence.
(Mon 1st Dec 2008, 22:00, More)