I've been taken in too -- two times that I remember well -- one, a kid collecting for a legitimate school charity -- "jump rope for heart" -- held every April... I gave him $10 and he said something like ... if you give me more... than ... will happen... and so on. After he left, I realized that it was November, not April. The other time was worse and I won't go into it, but I was in such a panic after realizing that I'd been scammed that my best friend had to come over to calm me down. There are probably more times that I don't even know I'd been scammed. The result is my general negative feeling about anyone who comes anywhere near my door.
I was that kid when I was 15 years old. My school used to give us these McDonalds coupon books that we had to sell for $5 each. I stole a bunch of outdated versions of them from the school and me and some friends went to the local mall and sold them. I pretended to be handicapped. I was a despicable kid. We made a lot of money.
Not quite, I've actually been training a small army of 15 year olds on how they too can sell expired coupon books for profit. In exchange for my tutoring, I receive a fair percentage of their earnings. Passive income... it's all the rage. my training regiment Step 1: Learning the product Step 2: Fitness (pretending to be handicapped is strenuous stuff) Step 3: Managing your finances (the part where they give me their money)
I have never read Oliver Twist, but when I see/hear it referenced I think of an old friend named Todd Deatherage. We used to share shows together back in the day and commiserate about being songwriters struggling to "make it." Here's his song Oliver Twist. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I've not heard that tune in a LONG time.