Ever buy a stranger lunch ?

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Never. But I do tip all of the hard working service people I interact with, the plumber, the electrician, the city garbage collection crew, the HVAC guy, the postal delivery guy, etc.....
 
Originally Posted by JeffKeryk
Yes.
Homeless, or look that way.
If I see a Police Officer or 2 behind me in line at Starbucks, I throw a 5 or 10 for their coffee.
Military too.


Thank you for doing that. I do the same.
 
Originally Posted by Astro14
Originally Posted by JeffKeryk
Yes.
Homeless, or look that way.
If I see a Police Officer or 2 behind me in line at Starbucks, I throw a 5 or 10 for their coffee.
Military too.


Thank you for doing that. I do the same.

Police officers in my town make about $150k a year plus free health insurance. Retire half pay after 25 years with full health insurance. God bless them and pray for there safety but I'm definitely not buying them lunch or coffee.
 
Originally Posted by fsdork
Originally Posted by Lolvoguy
Originally Posted by gman2304
I've picked up the tab for the person behind me in drive throughs numerous times.

How do you accomplish this?
Do you simply give the drive thru employee extra cash and tell them to use it towards the tab of the person behind you?
If so, how do you know they don't simply pocket it and carry on like nothing happened?


Usually by the time I'm at the window to pay, the person behind me has already placed their order at the speaker. The cashier therefore knows what that person's total is.
. ^^^ This ^^^ I tell the cashier I would like to pay the tab for the person behind me. I pay, get my food and I'm gone before they get to the window.
 
Originally Posted by Lolvoguy
Depends how cute she is
wink.gif


Lol.. right! Met my kids mother that way.. buying her and her gf's dinner and drinks. It paid off.
lol.gif
 
Originally Posted by askani79705
If there's a LEO...in the cafe...

It's industry standard that on-duty officers get a huge discount or free lunch. A cafe that didn't do that won't be around long.
 
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I have a few times.

When I was a kid my dad told me never give a bum money, they will only spend it on booze.

One homeless person I saw was walking near a McDonald's. I rolled down the passengers side window and told them to go into the McDonald's and I would buy them a meal. While I paid for it I bought a McDonald's gift card with enough on it to cover his next meal. While he was eating I gave him the gift card and told him it was for his next meal, and then I left.

I use to carry a McDonald's gift card with $5 on it to give to people who were begging, but now days some of them look so shady that I no longer take the chance that they may try something while I give them a gift card, so I stopped doing that.
 
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Years ago one evening I was sitting on the cement work outside a local pizza place waiting for them to make a hoagie for me and a teenager walked up to me and asked for money. I did not want to let him know where I carried my cash so I told him that I did not carry any cash, but if he waited a few minutes until I got my hoagie that I would go across the street with him to the McDonald's and buy him a meal with my credit card. He walked away without saying a word.
 
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I paid for the coming customers:
-couple girl scouts (next 2 kids eat cookies on me) (the little girls they where cute, but completely bamboozled: they could not figure out I didn't want the cookies)
-a burger demo place outside a sears (next 5 kids eat on me)
-some other place serving kids
-couple pizzas for some power guys out in the cold (my step-dad, RIP, used to work in hydro)
-some cold water or beer for garbage guys on a hot day(The only guys having it harder than them are the sewer guys)

My mom was an orphan in a dry out following the war. They used to eat weeds to survive...
 
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I haven't, but have thought about this experience I had many years ago. I was on some kind of road trip and stopped at a small sandwich shop/cafe. The guy in front of me asked if they had a military discount (I can't remember if he was in uniform) and the cashier said they didn't. I was much younger at the time and didn't really have the extra cash, but would have liked to buy the guy lunch.

That might have been 15 years ago and I still think about it and keep telling myself I'll do it next time.
 
Originally Posted by mk378
Originally Posted by askani79705
If there's a LEO...in the cafe...

It's industry standard that on-duty officers get a huge discount or free lunch. A cafe that didn't do that won't be around long.


You're right, most officers eat half price and most are free while in uniform. In most cases, paying their tab is like giving the restaurant free money. However, I can confidently say that I have never paid for a meal of a stranger.
 
Twice. Marine and friends at a bar&grill in Albion,Nebraska and an Army enlisted man and family at an Applebee's in Columbus,Nebraska. They were very appreciative and I felt very good about being able to do that. Will never forget how military members were treated coming home from Vietnam. A sorry, sorry time in our country's history. How could we have been so stupid?
 
I give money to the beggars on the streets (statistically likely to be a war vet) to spend the way they see fit but have never bought a stranger a lunch.
 
Originally Posted by mk378
Originally Posted by askani79705
If there's a LEO...in the cafe...

It's industry standard that on-duty officers get a huge discount or free lunch. A cafe that didn't do that won't be around long.


I worked in a grocery store back in the long ago day. The one radio patrol car on duty in the small town stopped by every Friday evening after closing time but before we all left. We gave them a six pack of beer for free.
 
I did this one time about 4 weeks ago. I stopped into Panera bread and saw this very worried looking young lady with her daughter. I had just came from donating platelets, and I bought her daughter and her lunch. She was so thankful, even crying. I felt good about it; as we all are in different situations
 
A few years ago, there was an ambush on some LEO,s here. I knew a son the son of one of the fallen.
Fast forward a few months and I was having dinner at a local diner out with my wife and kids and two uniformed deputies sat near us. I quietly went to pay our tab and picked up theirs also.
The waitress clearly didn't think they deserved my gesture but when I asked for the manager she accepted the payment reluctantly.
I didnt tell my wife or anyone else till now.
 
When I first moved to Tampa, FL in 1987 my wife and I only had 1 car (besides my '68 Fastback Impala project car). I got off at 3:30, her, 4:00. There was a portable walk in ATM across from her workplace. A woman in a leg cast with crutches was holding a homeless sign asking for money. I would give her a dollar or 2 before picking up my wife. One day my wife said she wasn't getting off of work until 5:30. As I was waiting for her, I watched that homeless woman go behind the ATM. She then rode away on a very nice moped, no cast or crutches. After my wife got off of work I rode over to the ATM and saw her fake cast and crutches stashed behind the ATM.
 
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