When I was younger I was never a member of the Boy Scouts of America.  Therefore I never took the Scout Oath (or Promise) which reads, “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to G-d and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” Maybe as a result of my omission from this club I never learned how to unequivocally help people in need. Perhaps offering up a helping hand was never fully encoded into my DNA.

This afternoon my mom and I were running errands in Lincolnwood (a suburb similar to Skokie about 10-15 minutes away). Lincolnwood is where the closest Michael’s Arts & Craft Store as well as Walmart is located. This summer we have frequented Walmart every couple of weeks when our list of items that we can find cheaper there reaches a sufficient number to justify the trip.

We shop at Michael’s first, getting what we need pretty quickly and make our way across the street to Walmart. After navigating through this beacon of consumerism for 15-20 minutes we are able to find everything on our list with relative ease. My mom used her mastercard to pay for the cat litter, gum and other essentials we had make the trip for concluding our errands for the day.

As we walked out of the store pushing our cart through the huge sliding doors into a fairly clear 70 degree afternoon we were quickly approached by a poorly dressed man who I’d guess was in his 50’s. He was standing next to a beat up old Dodge Caravan which was certainly made and purchased during the previous century. Without any prompting, other than my mom and I simply walking by, he began telling us a story about how he had just moved to the area and his car was dead and he needed some help with a jump or some money for gas.

My mom and I didn’t have anywhere in particular to be as we were only heading home where my mom and I would sit on the couch her having a snack and me updating my blog. There was no reason why if this person was actually in need of help that we couldn’t have stopped to aid him. So why didn’t my mom and I at least listen to his story and try to offer some assistance to this human being?

As we continued walking past this gentleman, not acknowledging that he was speaking to us, and continued on to our car I thought to myself, “Am I a bad person?”

Well I don’t believe that I’m a bad person but if that was really true then why did I just callously walk past this individual requesting my assistance?

As I’ve thought about that question for past few hours I have came to a few conclusions that mainly center on trust. How do I or anyone else know whether someone is really in need, running a scam or something else entirely? Between identity theft, online scams and fucking Bernie Madoff how do I differentiate between whom or what to trust anymore?

Sometimes I wish that I didn’t have these crises of conscious from time to time. That I could just have walked past that man this afternoon got into my car and drove home without any further self or societal examination. To me though that would only serve to further perpetuate my avoidance of social responsibility.

When it comes down to it what is the right thing or wrong thing to do in any situation is never as simple as we would like it to be. In the end we can only hope that when our car breaks down on the side of the road or we get a flat tire in a restaurant parking lot that the people we implore to help us were members of the Boy Scouts growing up.