But none of these circumstances applies to our friend. Incapacitated? Well, she can't really walk so well, but I don't really see that mild disability keeping her out of the job market. Discriminated against? No, nothing there, either. About the only possibility is her gender, but that is generally an upper-management prejudice--and I can't envision her having bumped into any glass ceilings in the recent past. And finally, on the subject of recent past, she has been at her stoop for most of it. Since I began attending this university, she has sat atop her milk crates almost every day.

Clearly, then, she is not in any transitional phase. She is not doing this because she suddenly got a bad break. She's not doing it just to make it by until she gets her next job. She seems to do it because, well, that's what she does. While you and I spend countless late nights memorizing equations and writing papers, while our parents labor 10 to 12 hours a day in mind-numbing office environments to earn a paycheck, while our grandparents rest secure in the fact that all their efforts in scrimping and saving their meager wages from the meat-packing plant or the assembly line paid off in engendering a large, thriving family tree from essentially nothing--she asks other people for money, and they give it to her. Every day.

Even more infuriating, however, is the fact that Harvard Square is replete with destitute women, homeless old men and other mendicants of a similar ilk who honestly do need our assistance to make it to the next day. Unlike our friend, you won't find them striking up conversations with passersby. They don't take the T into Harvard Square every day. They don't carry cute little signs. They are not charming, personable, or, often, even just plain nice. A lot of them clearly have mental problems. But it is these folks who truly require our help, who need monetary assistance to make it from day to day. And from observation, they don't seem to be getting it.

I guess the lesson is that if you're going to be a beggar in Cambridge, the assistance you'll receive will be related not to how much you actually need it, but how much of a swell, likeable person you are. And how long you've been at it. Or am I wrong?

When I was in middle school, a friend of mine and I realized that if we asked everyone we knew for a quarter, and did this day after day, we could make for ourselves five, ten dollars a week--no chump change to a couple of seventh-graders. The plan worked great for about four days. Then everybody realized what we were on to, and the donations quickly--and deservedly--dried up. And it's not because our friends and peers were heartless elites. It's not because they had ideological objections to giving money to people. It's because they realized they were being taken for suckers. If a bunch of thirteen-year-olds can figure that out, why can't we?

George W. Hicks '99-'00 is an economics concentrator in Winthrop House. His column will appear on alternate Fridays.