Ask and you shall receive or offend?
As the economic crisis worsens, I am surprised at the questions people ask and the requests they make. A few days ago, I received an email from a friend asking me if she, her boyfriend, and 8 year old son could park their trailer in my driveway and live in it until the economy gets better. She said they would need access to my bathroom. My friend plans on moving from Montana to escape the brutal, snowy, winter and “camp out” in California in my driveway (in their old trailer) indefinitely. My mouth dropped open midway through the email and I had to use a shovel to scoop my chin off the ground after I finished reading the email. I am saddened by what my friend and her family are experiencing, but thought it was ‘a bit much’ to let them live in my driveway. I offered to help her find a job, but I declined the request to turn my driveway into “Mama’s bed and breakfast”.
Do you think my friend over-stepped her limits?
- Mama
I think in today’s world people lose hope, and they begin to lose other things as well. They lose touch with who they were in better times. They give up caring what the world thinks of them, because it could not be any worse than what they think of themselves. In this situation it sounds like your friend may have been on the skids for some time. It sounds like she has lost touch with who she might have been. Perhaps she is being influenced by her partner. Desperation changes us, makes us capable of anything. You did the right thing, but I would have explored the question with her.