If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a beggar.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t have a problem with homeless people, panhandlers, or even (for the most part) trustafarians spare-changing their way across the country to the next Rainbow Gathering. I have no problem with people asking me for something, even when it’s something I don’t particularly want to give. I don’t even mind it when they are a little pushy: there used to be an older women who hung around downtown Flagstaff who was not just pushy; she was downright demanding. Her schtick was to march up to you on the sidewalk, and–glaring as if you, personally, were the one to blame for all her troubles–thrust her open palm up under your face in a silent “request” for spare change. Once you had placed the coins in her hand (you almost always did), she would check them, and if you hadn’t put in enough she would repeat the whole process over and over again until you had met her quota. And like I said, I was fine with that: at least she hit you up silently, which, compared to some of the improbable hard-luck stories the other downtown regulars felt compelled to share, was a blessedly peaceful approach.
The other nice thing about her approach was that, despite all of her demanding ways, she still knew how to take “no” for an answer: on those few occasions when I didn’t give her anything–because I didn’t have anything to give–she didn’t push it. As demanding as she was, when it came right down to it she always seemed to recognize a sincere “no.”
It’s been years now since I last saw her, and–given her advanced age then–I doubt that I ever will again. This is too bad, because recently I have come to the conclusion that I would gladly give her all of my pocket change from now until the end of time if only she would teach my children silent begging and the art of accepting “no.”
Come to think of it, I might even toss in a few bills: it would still be a small price to pay to never again have to hear the word pleeeeeeeeeeeeeese.
I’m not sure when it happened, but somehow pleeese has become the go-to word in my house for begging. With no encouragement (I swear) on my part, pleeese has taken on the mythic stature of the Masonic handshake; for some reason my children seem to believe that it is the key that will open every door (including the door to puppy ownership, apparently). This, even though–judging from the amount of verbal jiggling its users employ (“Pleese? Puh-leeze? Plees-plees-plees-plees-pleeese?”)–it would seem to be an ill-fitting key at best.
Perhaps it is because of its reputation as one of “the magic words;” however, what its users don’t seem to realize is that the word that holds the magic is please; pleeese on the other hand doesn’t even qualify as a real word–it’s more of a menacing noise, sort of like the whine of an engine in the wrong gear. It is also one of those sounds that gets its power to annoy from its unpredictability: rising and falling like the barking of a million excited Chihuahuas, it is designed to go directly to the lizard portion of our brain and elicits a response of: “Give them what they want; give them anything, just make that noise stop.”
Except that it doesn’t work. Or, at least it doesn’t work 99.9% of the time. (I swear.) Maybe its like my husband once said when I asked him why it was that some guys would hit on every single woman in the bar: “Because it only takes one yes.” I’m guessing, though, that the “one yes” didn’t come about in response to pleeese.