May 20, 2007
Will Work for Food
By Mike Faust Jagged hair framed the haggard face of a 30-year-old woman. She wore no cosmetics. Her bulky pants matched her XXL gray sweatshirt. I stopped to take a second look. In front of her she held a cardboard sign with four words scrawled on it: “Will work for food.” As I hurried into McDonald”s for lunch, my heart pounded as if I had just witnessed a car wreck. Who can think of food at a time like this? I spoke in chopped sentences: “There”s a woman . . . and a sign . . . she”s in trouble.”
