Personal Narrative: The Homeless

I was sitting in the back of my friend’s new Jeep, brainstorming an apology with her brother since we were late for our pre-concert rehearsal in Chicago. We were cruising down the road, a bit over the speed limit, when my friend, Janet, suddenly shouted nervously that we were passing through an under-resourced part of town. The Jeep rolled to a halt at the stoplight and a homeless woman stood by the curb, holding a cardboard sign with “Homeless, anything helps” scratched into it. Seeing that we had stopped, she approached the car and began tapping on the window, calmly asking for spare change. My friend quickly locked all the doors and anxiously banged on the steering wheel. As she urged the red light to change, her brother and I stared at the floor, avoiding
Janet is definitely the most cautious and obedient person I know, and as my role model, I believed everything she said. I remember in fourth grade, she convinced me that money donated to the homeless was used to purchase drugs and that they acted with violent intentions. I had heard such stereotypes online and from classmates but never believed them until her lecture. With her warnings constantly in mind, I often felt insecure when around these