Sometimes I hate this world :(

Diddums

Diddums

Diddums

Caporegime
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Yer nan's knickers
Just went to my local off licence to get the usual Saturday night beers and whatnot. In the shop is a little girl, couldn't have been older than 13, all by herself. She's stood at the counter starting at a bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, some jam and many stacks of 1 and 2p coins, which she was counting to purchase what was obviously basic supplies. She completes her transaction and is stood with a couple of coins in her hand when she points at some sweets and asks the shopkeep how much they are. When he says 5p, she looks at the coins in her hand, says "ok, no thank you" and walks out.

Naturally I called her back and bought her some goodies and a fistful of random sweets and the look on her face made it worthwhile, but two things surrounding this encounter made me very sad: in what world should a girl of that age be out at 6pm on a Saturday night counting pennies for milk & bread. 9 days before Christmas too. The second thing is what a crap world we live in where I could easily have been considered a predator for buying a 13 year old girl some sweets.

As someone who lived on the breadline for many, many years, to see this hits really hard for me and it does make me hate this world we live in.

I can only hope that the reason she was counting pennies was that her mother / father lost their card or something and are waiting for a replacement, because no child should be in that situation, ever, let alone a week before Christmas.

//Just felt like getting that off my chest.
 
Had a similar situation a few months ago but instead of a child it was a younger woman buying flowers and a card for what it seems was her mother, her card was declined and she was visibly upset and looked uncomfortable telling the self-checkout worker so I walked over and paid, she gave me a hug and wouldn't stop thanking me.

I'm rarely ever emotional and I'm usually quite the cynic but even though I'd helped her out I felt incredibly bad for her for the remainder of the night, just wondering what it must be like if life is like that for you every day. It may not have been but that's the thought process I had.
 
Ayahuasca said:
Had a similar situation a few months ago but instead of a child it was a younger woman buying flowers and a card for what it seems was her mother, her card was declined and she was visibly upset and looked uncomfortable telling the self-checkout worker so I walked over and paid, she gave me a hug and wouldn't stop thanking me.

I'm rarely ever emotional and I'm usually quite the cynic but even though I'd helped her out I felt incredibly bad for her for the remainder of the night, just wondering what it must be like if life is like that for you every day. It may not have been but that's the thought process I had.
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I lived like that for years. My father deserted my mother and I, she worked two jobs, at one point we were living in a caravan in my uncle's back yard with no heating in the middle of winter. My clothes and toys were all hand-me-downs and things like sweets were luxuries. That woman gave her all to look after me to the point where it almost broke here but she soldiered on, day in, day out. South Africa can be a very hard place to live, no government support, no medical care, etc. It was hard as a kid but then I also didn't know much better. I now earn a good living and make sure my mother wants for nothing. (not playing the pity card here, just explaining that I know exactly what it's like to live like that).

No person should have to live in those circumstances. Nobody.
 
And to make things worse you've posted about it on the internet...

I can see the headlines already.
 
This was the life of a good few people I went to school with (broken homes, scraping pennies and coupons to pay for food, etc. and whichever parent they lived with working a lot of hours to pay the bills and/or a deadbeat so they'd be the ones going out shopping, etc.) - though I only really found out the full extent of it (much) later.

I thought my life was fairly average for a middle class family - turns out I had it much more privileged relatively speaking than most in my year at school.
 
It's the world we live in unfortunately.You can read a thread here about some spending thousands of pounds on a watch, hundreds on perfume, etc etc, yet there are people making the choice between eating tonight or staying warm.
Good on you for bringing a tiny bit of happiness into her life. :)
 
Moses said:
Use it as motivation to do something meaningful in your area. So basically volunteer with any kind of youth group/after school group/food bank/whatever. The Scouts, for example, have a massive waiting list because they don’t have enough leaders.
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Are you trying to get OP locked up?

(Not sure the tongue in cheek way that was meant comes across over the internet)
 
Moses said:
Use it as motivation to do something meaningful in your area. So basically volunteer with any kind of youth group/after school group/food bank/whatever. The Scouts, for example, have a massive waiting list because they don’t have enough leaders.
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I wish I had the time, I really do. I'm already registering to become a STEM ambassador. Still, I'll always do my little bits to help those less fortunate than myself, and if people want to twist it in to nonce territory then they can jog on as far as I'm concerned (we do need these people obviously, I'm not blind to that fact).
 
Been there as a child and as a adult so know what's it's like in these desperate situations, that's why i take zero tollerance to anyone and i mean anyone who takes the **** out of the less fortunate.

Op are you the diddums gadgee, you have many name changes.
 
Spook187 said:
Been there as a child and as a adult so know what's it's like in these desperate situations, that's why i take zero tollerance to anyone and i mean anyone who takes the **** out of the less fortunate.

Op are you the diddums gadgee, you have many name changes.
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Yep, Diddums. My name changes every week nowadays.
 
always late said:
I wish I had the time, I really do. I'm already registering to become a STEM ambassador. Still, I'll always do my little bits to help those less fortunate than myself, and if people want to twist it in to nonce territory then they can jog on as far as I'm concerned (we do need these people obviously, I'm not blind to that fact).
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I was a STEM ambassador for 2 years. Was really fun and it was great to be around kids who actually want to learn.
On your OP you do see some heartbreaking things some days. I find it hard to deal with them as I dwell quite heavily. I was also raised alone by my mum but over here so we did have some help. It was still hard though.
 
always late said:
Just went to my local off licence to get the usual Saturday night beers and whatnot. In the shop is a little girl, couldn't have been older than 13, all by herself. She's stood at the counter starting at a bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, some jam and many stacks of 1 and 2p coins, which she was counting to purchase what was obviously basic supplies. She completes her transaction and is stood with a couple of coins in her hand when she points at some sweets and asks the shopkeep how much they are. When he says 5p, she looks at the coins in her hand, says "ok, no thank you" and walks out.

Naturally I called her back and bought her some goodies and a fistful of random sweets and the look on her face made it worthwhile, but two things surrounding this encounter made me very sad: in what world should a girl of that age be out at 6pm on a Saturday night counting pennies for milk & bread. 9 days before Christmas too. The second thing is what a crap world we live in where I could easily have been considered a predator for buying a 13 year old girl some sweets.

As someone who lived on the breadline for many, many years, to see this hits really hard for me and it does make me hate this world we live in.

I can only hope that the reason she was counting pennies was that her mother / father lost their card or something and are waiting for a replacement, because no child should be in that situation, ever, let alone a week before Christmas.

//Just felt like getting that off my chest.
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Respect for what you did there. It is such a shame that an amazing and innocent gesture could be seen as predatory.

This world is only going in one direction and it is not a good one imo :(
 
the local church packs food bags for kids at the local school, so they have something to eat over the weekend. Apparently some kids don't eat after their school lunch on friday until they have school lunch on monday :( Sometimes i think the USA is worse than a 3rd world country.
 
Roland Butter said:
In what way ?

[ the number of posts into a thread where the Daily Mail is first mentioned is getting lower these days, in this thread it's actually the 2nd post,
well done that unimaginative drab individual ]
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Lol

You lot and your blind hated for the DAILY MAIL is so funny.
 
always late said:
in what world should a girl of that age be out at 6pm on a Saturday night counting pennies for milk & bread. 9 days before Christmas too
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It's only 6PM, when I was that age we'd play outside and fetch milk or whatever our parents wanted from the corner shop no problem. Yeah it is close to Christmas, but that doesn't change much really.It could have been any time of the year!

always late said:
The second thing is what a crap world we live in where I could easily have been considered a predator for buying a 13 year old girl some sweets.
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Did anyone make claim that you were? If not then I'd not think about it at all. Modern culture has put people into the mindset that doing nice things for complete strangers must have an underlying motive. Shame because there are lots of good people out there who just won't do good things with fear of being labelled. The sooner people stop thinking this way the better.

always late said:
I can only hope that the reason she was counting pennies was that her mother / father lost their card or something and are waiting for a replacement, because no child should be in that situation, ever, let alone a week before Christmas.
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Maybe her parents just gave some change lying around and didn't want to give a debit card or something that might get lost? Could be legit reasons.

The fact that the girl was completely polite makes me think the above reasons could be true. She's obviously been brought up to be polite, that doesn't happen by itself. I've seen kids that don't even know how to say please or thank you.

You did a good deed that day, and she will remember that for years to come. Will probably end up paying it forward one day to help someone else out. Inspiring events are all round and those things shape that kind of people we end up becoming.
 
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