Do I really look that naive?

...or, I'd like to take the handle of that damn pan and beat some people down for their fucking nerve...

I'm used to panhandlers, yes. I encountered them every now and then back in Southeast Texas. Perhaps I should have known the number of times I'd be approached by them would increase when I moved to the big city, but I was still taken aback by it, especially lately; at the closest H-E-B, it seems I have gotten approached by someone about four times out of every five that I have been there. One incident earlier this week triggered my ire:

Panhandler: "Do you have a couple dollars?"
Me: "No."
Panhandler:"Come on, can't we work something out? I come to your house and do your lawn?"

Oh yes. I will give a complete stranger directions to my home! I DID in fact fall off the turnip truck yesterday! Who the hell do these assholes think they are? Yeah, I realize they may be falling on hard times, but do they think everyone they come up to has that money to spare? It's one thing to ask, but after I say no, dammit that should be IT.  Would that I could do that again. I know exactly what I'd say.

"Don't fucking ask me again, what the fuck is wrong with you? Don't you fucking think I have a family to feed too?"

I know very well that Jesus said, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me," but who's to say that "the least of these" is anybody but my pregnant wife and three stepdaughters? I may drive a semi-new truck, but it's NOBODY'S place to assume that I have money to give away just because of that. More and more I understand my wife's aversion to people in general...