koleeta

Worst Christmas morning EVER.


How I Spent My Christmas

I woke up at 5ish this morning because my mother asked me to go with her to help the homeless on Christmas morning. I have mixed feelings about this kind of thing to begin with but I figured I should do something for the less fortunate at least once in my life. I've never done any kind of community work on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, though I do it on occasion, I was not interested at all in waking up before sunrise, and even less so in "working" for free. But, it's Christmas, you know? And it's pretty impossible to feel alright about yourself after saying "No, I don't want to help the homeless on Christmas." I was expecting a soup kitchen type scenario the next morning. I thought that might actually be a good experience for me.

So we get to the meet up location where everything was being organized and during the prep speech I find out that we are NOT working with the shelter, the police DO NOT want us there. The plan is to show up on Skid Row hand out toiletries, sandwiches and sleeping bags out of our trucks and SUVs and then the hell out once everything was gone. I am already not feeling so good about myself.

We load up the trucks and SUVs, and caravan (led by a giant Escalade, can you smell the irony?) from Cerritos to downtown Los Angeles. We get there and it's a madhouse, of course. They told us it would be. After we parked at the end of the street we walked down to where the trucks with the blankets, food and toiletries were parked. Someone was stopped in the middle of the street. The car had been swarmed by people standing in front of the car, coming from behind, practically halfway inside the car via the driver side window. It looked like something you might see in an apocalyptic zombie movie. The driver was handing out McDonald's burgers. Not sure how smart of a move that was but maybe it's just my memories of the LA riots from when I was a kid that has me over cautious about mobs.

The street was flooded with people. There was yelling, fighting, Christmas caroling. In fact, there was a pickup truck full of smiling kids singing carols at the top of their lungs being accompanied by acoustic guitars. Feliz Navidad seemed to be their favorite.

"Hey, don't you want to sing?"

"NO."

People were gathering and snapping pictures, taking video of themselves "having fun" - not of them with the residents, mind you. I talked to one a guy who was holding some of the items that had been given away. He said his family was coming up from San Diego tomorrow. They would be in town for a few hours. He asked what I liked to do for fun and if I lived around here. Then he asked for my number. Asked if I had a boyfriend. When I told him I did he gracefully exited the conversation. No one else was interested in chatting with me.

Soon appeared as though we were starting to head out. I asked one of the ladies we were working with if we should try picking up some of the trash that was around. There were wrappers from new blankets that had been bought. Empty boxes were on the sidewalks. She just said "nah" and sort of laughed like I had just said something hilarious. I looked around and this other woman was motioning to her boyfriend, husband or fiance, to starting walking back to the car with her. He had a ciagarette and a cup of coffee. She motioned for him to "just leave it!" And I looked back and forth at them with a look that I thought was saying "You're not fucking serious, are you?" I guess it didn't come across that way because he hesitantly put his empty (or possibly half empty) coffee cup on the sidewalk. Way to listen to your conscience instead of your girlfriend, guy. And, of course, I didn't say anything to them, nor did I pick up after them and I still feel like an asshole for that. I couldn't even come up with anything TO say about it until I was back in the car with my mom and sister. I pretty much exploded into a rambling mess of angry words and tears while telling them what I saw. They weren't with me while we were out there. This was a pretty crappy Christmas experience.

If I didn't already make it clear: If you want to do something good for others, make sure it doesn't include showing up in your luxury SUVs, creating a scene, taking tons of pictures of you and your friends patting yourselves on the back, leaving your trash all over the streets then driving off before the clock even reaches the next hour.