No good deed will go unpunished

I swear, I have to move out of this city before I turn completely cynical. At the moment, I have moments of optimism for mankind, but give it time people, and those nuggets of good feeling I have will be a sad memory.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened to me, it's only the most recent. Yesterday, a neighbor (from WAY down the block) knocked on my door. She wanted a ride, basically around the corner, to a store. Ok, kinda weird- I didn't want to. I should have refused. But, I thought I'd be nice, and had forgotten the golden rule that entitles this post.

I drive her there, wait the parking lot, and then drop her off at her house. She obviously had gotten some sort of malt beverage, and it wouldn't be her first sip of the day if youknowwhatImean. I will mention, too - that just to be on the cautious side, I had left my purse at home. Just because. Figure it out.

Anyway, a few hours later, the same one knocks on my door, pretty damn drunk, and claiming that she lost (the story varied) her 1) purse, 2) her social security cards, and (most importantly) 3) $40. Well, Ok ... let's go look in the car, you should be happy to know that it's been locked since I got home, and it's alarmed, so if it was in there, it would have been safe. Guess what? It wasn't there (but you knew that, didn't you.) This is where it gets ugly, because apparently this is now MY problem. She HAD $40 in there, and now it's gone, and what am I going to do about it? It finally got to the point where she needed to speak to my husband. He didn't give her satisfaction, and she walked off saying that we would hear from her lawyer.

I don't know if she honestly lost money somewhere (not that it would be my problem), or if it was a "scam" from the start - but I'm feeling very black thoughts about our fellow man. My mind goes off on tangents regarding welfare, and socialism and why I should have a gun.