No good deed goes unpunished.......

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yup, we all get screwed once in a while. a few things i have learned: 1) dont give more than i can afford to lose;2) have no expectations of what is going to be done with what i give;3) donate to organizations like the red cross and salvation army and let them determine who gets the handouts.
 
Here is one that I will never forget, I live on a major highway and people are always breaking down in front of the house. One day while I was outside a car stopped in front of the house with a flat tire, after watching him trying to break the lugs loose with his tire iron with no success he climbed over the wire fence and came to the house asking if he could use a tire iron and a jack. He had his tire iron in his hand and it was no good, I loaned him a tire iron and jack that I had that I saved from a car that I took to the junk yard. I watched him change the tire and when he finished he threw the bad tire in the trunk along with my jack and tire iron- closed the trunk and drove away:angry:. He did at least leave me his old no good tire iron laying on the side of the road. So from now on I loan nothing out without having cash in hand (enough to replace items) or a drivers license. I had one guy stop that ran out of gas so I gave him a 5 gal gas can with some gas and took $20 to hold on to until he stopped back with the can(with gas in it) this way if he didn't come back I had enough to get a new can and gas, only problem was I was getting ready to leave so I told him that I would put his $20 in the gas grill and when he stopped back to drop of my can he could grap his money and we would be even. sure enough he stopped back while we were gone and did what was agreed. Sad thing is he ran out again almost exactly a year later in front of my house and when he came to my door he just said "can we do the same thing as last time" which we did, luckily it's been 2 years since I have seen him.
 
I get requests all the time to take care of trees and I've just learned to stay away aside from a select few friends who are always good to me. people will always want more for nothing.

I've got one buddy I drop wood off for occasionally and in turn he does a lot of carpentry work for me around the house and does a darn good job of it too.

The biggest problem I run into is during the winter. I have a plow so i get the neighborhood asking me to clean their driveways. Which I usually refuse. however when we get hit by a big storm, usually I'm a little more willing to help people out. Especially the older folks who would really be straining to clean their driveway with a shovel.

Never fails, they come out and ask me to shovel the sidewalk, they don't like where I put the snow, can I come back tomorrow and do it again, their son would like me to do theirs, the list goes on and before too long I'm getting screwed.

So what I do now is if they want me to clean their drive, $50 up front. I clean the drive (I do a nice clean job too) and then pull right out. they call less and are grateful now? Go figure.

To the OP, that was quite generous of you do go drop off that wood. It's a shame they turned out to be turds
 
Actually, I'm starting to think that I should have expected something like this. I like to think that there's a special level of hell for people like that.......where they have to deal with people who did the SAME THINGS they did! Lol


Dave
 
They have a dolla sto' in town that every time you go in, the kids are scamming people in the check out line. They will go in with 50 cents and buy 75 cents worth of candy. The kids slowly search their pockets and ask the cashier if they can loan it to them. The whole time this is happening, the line is growing longer and the people impatient so someone in the line inevitably gives in and hands them the extra money. Great skills these kids are learning.
 
I have one to add but its a little different tale than most.Over the years i have helped a few folks out and never asked anything in return.I've had people straight out lie just to get something for nothing,but like most I'm gulliable and if possible will try to help a person out.
Well I got my return this past saturday.A friend of mine asked if I could take my truck and go with him to gatlinburg Tn and bring his camper home.I agreed so off we go.

In morristown Tn my truck had an belt idler pulley lock up and break off so there I sit in the parking lot of a cherokee lake boat ramp with a broken truck.I'm mad at myself because I never had as much as a screw driver in the truck to work with.
While mulling over my dilema this gentleman pulls up and ask if I have toubles. I explain my situation and he tells me no problem,the guy basically loans me enough tools to fix my truck and takes me to an autoparts store where I can get my needed parts and then takes me back to my truck.He then Absoultely refused to let me pay him for his time .
This mans help saved me a bundle because I was getting ready to call a rollback and have my truck hauled home where I could repair it.So if someone does screw you over dont let that stop you from helping someone out,because you may never know when you are the one who needs help.
 
There are people that WANT help and then there are people that NEED help. It is our own responsibility to decide which one that person is. I have a person i know that doesnt have a pot to p... in or a window to throw it out of, always short on money, always needing help.....but she still has enough money to buy smokes and scratchies, so does she really need help? In a side note.. I have always been a believer in "if you are willing to work there is work to be had" If someone really wanted to work, and had a good work ethic, they could move up at a fast food chain to manager pretty fast. Its not the most prestigous job but it would pay the bills. Sorry for my rant!


also living below you means is also a good rule of thumb?
 
OP, amazing story. Unfortunate, more and more frequent now-a-days.
It seems the entitlement mindset has taken over. It's crazy how in my lifetime we've gone from being proud to work and support your family, not taking a handout unless needed, to people expecting everything to be handed to them and paid for on the backs of others. And it's only gonna get worse boys....All by design, handouts equal control an control equals voters..
It seems lot of people have forgotten about right and wrong.
 
There are people that WANT help and then there are people that NEED help. It is our own responsibility to decide which one that person is. I have a person i know that doesnt have a pot to p... in or a window to throw it out of, always short on money, always needing help.....but she still has enough money to buy smokes and scratchies, so does she really need help? In a side note.. I have always been a believer in "if you are willing to work there is work to be had" If someone really wanted to work, and had a good work ethic, they could move up at a fast food chain to manager pretty fast. Its not the most prestigous job but it would pay the bills. Sorry for my rant!

That's a great point. Someone asking for cash at the local WM parking lot certainly ain't getting a nickle when they are smoking .....being observant can reveal a lot.
And wth is with scratch lottery tickets? It is crazy here, pull into any gas station or quickstop and dollars to donuts, there's someone scratching away in there car, never even looking up, a pile of tickets outside the car on the ground.
 
I quietly but firmly took the nozzle out of his hand, stuck it in the car, and pumped ten bucks into the tank.

Sounds like you should have spent another $3.50 and doused him with a gallon. Then start checking your pockets sayin' "where's my damn lighter?"
 
Smokes and scratch offs, and.............. don't forget beer! Seems like an awful lot of low-lifes ALWAYS have money for beer and cigs. Kids need shoes, but don't let that stand in the way of smokin and drinkin.

Last week I went to the post office and the postmaster was looking out the window just burning up. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that she just got yelled at by some jerk who got locked out of his PO box for failing to pay his box fee. Gave her the old "times are tuff and people don't have money" story. And there he was walking out of the store next door smoking a cigarette and carrying an 18 pack of Bud. (That cost less than the box fee)
 
About 8 years ago when I was finishing my last semester of college my wife and I lived with my mother in law. She lives in an older neighborhood of a bigger city and has a Guy who would come mow the yard for her, he's reliable, shows up every week, but hasn't really been able to find steady work. I only had a few hours of class a week and a part time job so he would stop every once in a while and ask for a few extra bucks for groceries , I think I gave him 10 dollars the first time. The next time I told him I was headed to the store as well and told him to come along. He was so grateful he didn't have to carry his bag of potatoes and milk on his bike he mowed the lawn the next week without looking for payment. I told my MIL to give him a raise!

Sometimes things do go right!

Sent from my Droid
 
Holding him up against the pump by the throat, I told him just what I thought of him. Sending his woman into the store to do the begging, not making sure as the man of the house that they got enough gas to not only get into town but back home again.Then I popped the drivers door open and holding him by his ear I encouraged him to apologize to his wife for being such a low down sap sucking low life.It took a little twisting of his ear, but he managed to choke most of the words out. I then told the little gal to listen to her daddy next time when he warned her that she was marrying a piece of trash that will probably leave her stranded in a dark parking lot someday begging for gas money.

If we had more people like Avalancher in this world, it would be a better place for sure!!! :rock::msp_biggrin::bowdown:


I ran out of gas in a lonely spot in South Dakota one day, with the whole family in our funeral limo (Yes, I drive a 6-door funeral limo for my big family!!). Nobody stopped to help for about 10 minutes. Finally a cop came and drove me to the next town, 15 miles away. He didn't offer to drive me back, and I didn't ask. Gas station made me pay a deposit for the gas can, and a nice family offered to take me back before I had even filled up or started asking for a ride. They dropped me where I needed to be, refused any money, and left. Got my tank filled up back at the station, and got my $20 back.
 
As I have said in a previous post, when I first joined this list I was trying to heat our house with our fireplace. You probably know the health issues hubby was going through so I won't bring that up. A list member here read between the lines, pm'd me asking for my address, and the next thing I knew he was in my driveway with a load of firewood. :)

Other kind souls on this list also read between the lines and provided me one of those new fangled things called a gas powered chainsaw. Apparently they didn't like me using the electric chainsaw we had. :)

When we had a little money and needed some noodling done, I called the list member who had provided us with that much need firewood the year before. The day he came for noodling turned out a little bad as hubby's artificial heart temporarily failed and we had to cancel the remaining noodling as hubby & I took off in the ambulance. Noodling was finished at a later date once hubby was back home.

Sometime later this list member told me that when I paid him he like he felt he was taking money from his grandmother - ha! It was payback for helping us out that first winter. :)

People that need help normally don't ask. You guys have been great to hubby & I. It will soon be two years since hubby's heart transplant. No signs of rejection - yet - and if he passes his next checkup in November he should be good to go (keeping my fingers crossed!). Maybe we will get to a GTG yet.

Shari
 
Yes, there are good people out there too, both the needy and the helpers. Reading these posts, I'm reminded of an incident that happened to me about 30 years ago. I was driving in Southern Wyoming, somewhere south of Jackson Hole early one Sunday morning, when my car just shut off. No power anywhere, and I couldn't find the cause. The battery was still good, so I hotwired the CB to it(no cell phones then), and called for help. To my surprise, someone answered, and said he would be there in a little bit. About 10 minutes later, someone pulls up in a pickup, and we went over the car again, but still came up empty. So, he says I guess I'll have to tow you to my place. Turns out his place was a large ranch! He had a mechanic there that was able to get the car restarted. Turns out it was a fried fusable link(never happened again, and I have no idea why it happened then). Wired around it and I was good to go. Thanked him over and over, and tried to pay him, but he flatly refused. So we said so long... But I did get his address from a card he had in the shop, and sent him $50(which was a lot in 1980). I didn't include a return address, so he couldn't send it back!

Remembering that time, I've always tried to help others out when I can. Like others here, I've encountered some ungrateful people. Mostly though, people are really appeciative of help, but as mentioned, the ones who really need it are the last to ask for it...
 
Here is one that I will never forget, I live on a major highway and people are always breaking down in front of the house. One day while I was outside a car stopped in front of the house with a flat tire, after watching him trying to break the lugs loose with his tire iron with no success he climbed over the wire fence and came to the house asking if he could use a tire iron and a jack. He had his tire iron in his hand and it was no good, I loaned him a tire iron and jack that I had that I saved from a car that I took to the junk yard. I watched him change the tire and when he finished he threw the bad tire in the trunk along with my jack and tire iron- closed the trunk and drove away:angry:. He did at least leave me his old no good tire iron laying on the side of the road. So from now on I loan nothing out without having cash in hand (enough to replace items) or a drivers license. I had one guy stop that ran out of gas so I gave him a 5 gal gas can with some gas and took $20 to hold on to until he stopped back with the can(with gas in it) this way if he didn't come back I had enough to get a new can and gas, only problem was I was getting ready to leave so I told him that I would put his $20 in the gas grill and when he stopped back to drop of my can he could grap his money and we would be even. sure enough he stopped back while we were gone and did what was agreed. Sad thing is he ran out again almost exactly a year later in front of my house and when he came to my door he just said "can we do the same thing as last time" which we did, luckily it's been 2 years since I have seen him.



you reminded me of a funny one i had a few years ago comin up I-75 around bay city. a chevy cavalier with a man tryin to break loose lugnuts on a flat tire. i pull up to help and stupid me asks," havin problems with a flat,eh?" without missin a beat the man say, "h*ll no, i rotate my tires every 5,000 miles no matter where i'm at!"i said, " yup, i deserved that one!" brand new tires and the tire shop used an impact to tighten up the lug nuts. no way he was gonna break em loose with the cheap factory lugnut wrench. went back to my car and got my 4 way. those things were friggin tight! after a good laugh and gripin bout some repair shops, we got the spare on, lowered the car, he thanked me and i said," we aint done yet! we either gotta find 3 other tires to match that one or finish the rotation!" we both left in a lot better mood than when i pulled up. and i had my 4 way still!
 
Well, here is a story about helping someone, and things went right for a change.


Many moons ago, when I was sixteen, I had been out hunting in the Gifford Pinchot Forest, located about 40 miles north of my hometown of BattleGround Wa. It was a rainy old day, typical of the weather in Washington, and I was looking forward to a nice hot shower and some dry clothes.

As I came around a bend in the rural road, up on the hill above the road was a gravel road that curled its way down to the main road, and as I lazily scanned the scenery, I noticed a grey car up on the road, listing at a strange angle. I thought it was odd, the angle of the car, where it was at, and above all, the strange luxury vehicle where only a truck should be. I decided to swing around and check it out.

As I approached the vehicle, I noticed a middle aged woman behind the wheel, staring out the windshield with what appeared to be a look of fear on her face. I got out of the truck, and making my way to the drivers door, I noted that the large luxury vehicle had slipped off the road into the ditch, more or less pinning the drivers door shut against the hill side. Seeing that there was no way of opening the door, I went back around to the passengers side where the lady popped open the door to talk to me.

She had been crying, that was plain to see. Makeup ran down her face, and if it had been any darker out there I am sure the sight might have made my whiskers wiggle at the notion that perhaps I had run across one of them female forest trolls that my grandpa had always warned me about. But after realizing that indeed she didnt have any fangs showing, and that it appeared to just be makeup, I got close enough to talk.

With a shaky voice, she explained that she had been up the gravel road early in the morning before the rain started to look at some property that her and her husband had planned on buying and developing, and that on the way down the rain had started and the road got slippery. Just as she thought she was going to make it down the hill okay, her car slipped and into the ditch she went.

After looking at the car, I realized that if I tried to pull the thing out of the ditch from the downhill side, it would do nothing more than slide down the ditch, and ten feet from the car the ditch got deep enough that most likely the car would roll over on its side. The only other option would be to pull the vehicle back out the way it came, and there was no way I was going to squeeze past her with my truck. There was barely five feet from the passenger door to the edge of the road. I told her that she would have to ride with me to the nearest town of Cougar, and from there we could get a tow truck that could lift her car as well as pull to get it out of the ditch. She agreed, reached for her briefcase, and carefully crawled out the passenger door.

Promptly her high heel shoes sunk in the mud, and with a quiet groan to myself I got down on my knees and removed her shoes and offered to carry her, although in retrospect she probably weighed more than I did. With a giggle, she said she would walk to the truck barefooted seeing as how her clothes were ruined already with the steady downpour. Just as we started to make our way to the truck, with a squeal her bare feet went out from under her, and she hit the ground, close enough to the edge to make me catch my breath.

She moved fast, I will give her that. On all fours she scurried to her car, flung the door open, and jumped into the safety of her car. She assured me at that point that she was not getting out of that car for love or money. I then told her that it was time to call a pro, and told her I would go into town and call a wrecker. Slogging my way back to my truck, I grabbed my lunchbox and thermos, handed them to her, and told her I would be back in an hour. As I drove away, I quietly thought, "wow, is she ever going to be surprised at what is in my lunchbox. Venison steak sandwich, some Cheetos that had seen better days, chocolate covered raisins, (I always ate them when deer hunting for luck, its a long story) and a thermos of hot chocolate. I dont and never have drank coffee.Another long story.

I made it into town, stopped at the little store, and tried calling for help. Cougar was a one horse town out in the middle of nowhere, and nobody from BattleGround was willing to come that far on the twisting turning back roads.Back to the woman I went.

I explained the situation, and again tried to get her to get out of the car, but she wasnt budging. I explained until my fingernails fell off that she was in no danger of falling off the hill if she stayed close to the car, but she refused. Then I had an idea. I told her that the road that she was on went on over the hill and rejoined a different county road, and that with some luck I could go around the hill on the paved road, and come down to her from the top, and with the winch I should be able to pull her back on the road, but it was going to take some time.She agreed, and off I went.

It took me an hour and half to get around the hill and back down to where she was, and another thirty minutes to pull her out of the ditch, but finally we made to the bottom of the hill where she stopped her car and was obviously waiting for me to come to her car. Seeing as how I couldn't get any wetter, I swam my way down to her car and she motioned for me to get in the passenger side.

It sure was a nice car, nicer than anything I have ever been in, but then again I reckon I was rather biased. The nicest car I had ever been was an ambulance, so I reckon any wealthy persons car would look nice to me. I felt bad about my wet and muddy clothes, but she assured me that she had already soiled the interior up enough she would probably be forced to buy a new car. I agreed, I always tossed my truck once it got dirty. At least when I was dreaming about hitting the big time after winning the lottery.

At any rate, she said she wanted to pay me for my time and trouble, and after pulling out her wallet, she tried to hand me a hundred dollar bill, and I was floored. I had never seen a hundred dollar bill before, at least not a real one. Anything bigger than a 20 was beyond my scope, and I always figured who ever invented the game of Monopoly sure was making up some #### when he included a $500 bill.

I held that bill in my hands a good while.I smelled it,it smelled real. Even with her perfume on it, it smelled real. I began to think about all the neat stuff I could buy with that thing. Hell, I could probably flash that thing on Monday at school and finally convince Laura,my secret high school crush, that she ought to go out with me instead of laughing and tossing french fries at me. I would be a big man! But then I remembered what my grandfather and my mother had taught me. Never take payment for helping someone out. It aint right. With a sigh, I handed it back, told her I enjoyed holding that money and sitting in her fancy car, but I dont accept money for helping out. Especially a fortune like that.

With a laugh, she said, "Honey, I spend more than that at a beauty salon" and I said yes maam, I reckon you do cause you are very pretty, but I was taught never to take money for helping out someone. She looked at me for awhile, the startled me with, "you have no idea who I am, do you?"

I had no idea, and told her so. With a laugh, she said, "honey, dont you read the newspaper, or watch TV?"
Nope.Dont have time to read the paper, and we dont own a TV.

She sat for awhile, then said she would like to at least send me a proper thank you card, and asked for my address. I wrote it down for her, picked up my lunchbox and thermos, and told her to have a nice day that I had better be headed home for evening chores. She kissed me on the forehead, and thanked me again for the help.

Months later, Christmas rolled around, and my mother told me that I had gotten a letter in the mail. For me, this was unusual. I didn't get mail. Who in the hell gets mail when you are sixteen? I never did. But there on the kitchen table was a nice little envelope with my name on it. It had no return address, and smelled like a girl. As I sniffed it, my mom smiled and asked me who she was. I had no idea, so I tore open the envelope and inside was a card.

Opening it, I found two $100 bills inside, with a note. It said, "Thank you for the wonderful lunch. I haven't had Cheetos since I was a teenager, and they were very good."

To this day, I have no idea who she was, but every year until I turned 25 those cards showed up, promptly two weeks before Christmas. And I spent every dime of that money buying Christmas presents for my mother and my grandfather until he passed away when I was 20. Figured that was the only way to spend that money.
 
:rock: Hail to the do-gooders. We need more like them.

I love where I live. A few months back, a small truck with pop=up camper in tow popped a tire. Could hear it a mile away... pop--flub-flub-flub, etc. I headed down with lug wrench in hand, had to go back to get a jack. Neighbor showed up and took the kids to his swing set, other neighbor showed up with cans of pop. Any we had a merry time on the side of the road changing a flat.

However :angry: , About two years ago, I gave a nice cord (more like a cord and a half) to a mostly deaf guy who claimed poor from disability, truck broke down, etc. We negotiated a price of $40 (didn't even cover my gas to go get it). I told him to come over and start loading it any time. Wood was gone, never saw him again. I HATE the disability card, it is unfortunate it gets abused so much. I had even tuned up and sharpened an 18" chain saw I got at a yard sale and was going to give it to him, his loss.
 
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