Yesterday, a middle-aged man tried to chat me up while waiting for BART. He asked me how I was and when I returned the greeting, he said, "Fine, except I might be dead in an hour."

Obviously, I thought he was drunk, high, and/or crazy. He assured me that he was neither of the first two and then proceeded to tell me about this great "deal" he had and how he invested money in some guy's business.

"It's called 'furniture,'" he said, as though he expected me to believe he works for IKEA. It made me wonder if "furniture" is slang for cocaine.

So, he was going to go meet with this guy who had sold him low-quality "funiture" that the middle-aged man couldn't sell. And he thought he would face this seller's short temper. "And I'm going there alone," he said.

I started to tell him that he should take someone with him, all the while knowing that other people waiting for BART thought I was naive and didn't know when to ignore strangers. But he interrupted me, which is just as well because he probably would have asked me along. And it's just as well, because I have trouble saying no to people, even when they appear to be out of their minds and when I have a perfectly good excuse, like work.

When the train came, he told me that he'd see me later, by the grace of God or something. And then he went and sat in another car.

But while I was on the train, I kept thinking that it would have been such a fucking cool idea to ditch work and follow some guy on an adventure to a warehouse in East Oakland where there would be a shoot out over "furniture."

Cool and stupid, obviously. I need to start ignoring these people on BART.

Leon has this tendency to be charitable, despite his better judgment. On Tuesday, he rode his bike home from his friends' apartment and was met with temptation. Or, as he put it, "On my ride home, I saw some sucker give a homeless man five bucks. Oh, and the sucker was me."

When we were in Chicago over the summer, many a-beggar received a buck or two from Leon. My sweet boyfriend just feels bad not doing anything, and I know what that's like. But a dollar will scarcely change a person's life.

Even so, I think I may have a similar weakness. When I was driving home from the club last night, I stopped at McDonald's (no, that's not the weakness). As I was pulling out of the parking lot, there was an adorable orange kitten in the road. I was terrified that I was going to hit it, because it disappeared under my car. Needless to say, I drove like a damn slug until it was in my view again.

But I couldn't just leave it there to be hit by some careless driver. So, I parked, got out of my car and began to chase after it.

Unfortunately, by the time I actually managed to park, the kitten had trotted off down another street. And this street was dark and the homes were extremely run down. There were many boarded up houses that had been vandalized. There were a few upstairs lights on, but mostly, the street just seemed frighteningly quiet.

I was scared. Halfway down the block, I realized that chasing a cat through an unfamiliar St. Louis neighborhood in the middle of the night was probably against my better judgment. Once the cat disappeared under a car, I gave up on it. There was no sense in me getting down on hands and knees to say, "Here, kitty, kitty" to a cat that probably had an owner. Plus, I had no idea where an animal shelter was.

As I headed back to my car, I saw another orange kitten and briefly walked toward it before it darted away and I saw just how foolish I was.

I hurried to my car to get out of the neighborhood. Some random man walking by tossed me a "Hey, baby" and perhaps an insult. I just couldn't hear him. And I felt awfully stupid before he potentially questioned just what the hell I was doing.

Maybe the next time I see a helpless animal in the street, I'll just toss some money at it and run away. This seems to help Leon's conscience. If only briefly.