Hungry for Truth

(I thought I posted this yesterday, but turns out, I just saved it)

Last night, I was coming out of church and down Boylston when I was approached by a guy for money, who said that his daughter and wife were all hungry. I didn't have any cash on me so I offered to take him to the McDonald's across the street. A well lit, populated place with fast food service- McDonald's deserves more credit than it often receives. As we started to head across the street, "Ron" asked if it was all right that I get something for his son, too, and went to fetch "Robbie." Robbie was short, with leather skin and a beard spotted with white hair. "He's twenty four," Ron said, and maybe I should have laughed, but I didn't. As we waited in line at McDonald's, Ron kept going on his ludicrous story, saying things like "then we will bring this food to my wife and our daughter." I wanted to tell him that he didn't have to lie, that Robbie looked older than he does, that I'm figuring that he's probably been on the streets longer than he lets on, and that regardless of all that, I was going to buy the food. But I didn't. Because I don't know how I would have handled any of his reactions. So we just waited in line and carried out this great farce, him telling me about the hard times his nonexistent family was going through while I pretended to be naive enough to believe him. Even though I really am more naive than he is and he really has to be on hard times to be waving down strangers for dinner at 9PM. And the reality of it was all this time that he was hungry and I had the power to do something about it.