I could kick myself. A young woman politely stopped me in food store parking lot, needing money

[hunter]

50. I'm never bothered. It's horribly real, or it's a good story.

The story tellers? I usually make them work for it a little and sometimes I learn the true horrible story.

When I was a kid our family had landed in Franco's Spain. (That's another story...)

My mom is the sort of person who always says what she thinks. (It's possible I am too, which is why I got kicked out of college twice. I graduated before the third strike.)

One sunny day a Spanish government official came by to check our passports and other documents. My mom, of course, was entirely honest about everything, answered all the questions he asked, most especially her political and religious perspectives. The man went away.

My dad couldn't sleep that night. He woke us all up and we loaded all our stuff in the car and drove to France.

Mostly I remember amber headlights. Amber headlights were something common in France then. The closer we got to the French border, the more amber headlights we saw coming the other way.

The Spanish border guards were disinterested and only wanted to go back to sleep. They waved the Americans through. The French border guard asked my dad if he had any cigarettes. He was disappointed that we had none and raised the gate without looking at our papers.

Then we were living in a public park in France, indigent Americans who did not speak French. My dad couldn't get his money from Spain. People gave us food. We were using the most hideous toilet I have ever seen in my life -- very drunk people, vomit, and masturbating perverts. Toilet buddy system, male or female.

Eventually the local community bought us a full tank of gas and ferry tickets to England. (We were embarrassing them I think.) An English bank managed to retrieve my parent's money from the Spanish bank and this adventure was done.

Stories like this happen in the U.S.A. too, but often don't end so well.