The story that I was half telling in another thread. Might as well finish it: I turned up at Moynihan station at 4:30 a.m. Monday, New York for my Washington train. Entry doors closed, station shut. And this very helpful **** guy (well-dressed) came out of the blue and said no it's across the road. Penn Station. Helped me with my luggage and everything. So between the moment that this guy helped me across the road and by the time I got down to the escalator and to the cordoned ticketing section with the seats I'd realized this guy was basically a scammer running his nightly patter -tourists that turn up at Monahan train hall not realizing that it's Penn station access only for the early trains. (The train lines run between the two adjacent stations under the ground so you can access the same train by both stations). So as we near the ticketing section the conversation turns to how poor he is and how he has kids with mouths to feed etc. Now, I may not like being scammed but I'm a fair person. And I had super, super heavy luggage, including a XXL bike in a bike case. And he helped me carry all of that and helped me find the train. So I felt a little obliged I was running purely on credit cards since I flew in. Not a cent on me. Unsurprisingly, my protagonist knew exactly where the ATM was. Not a chance I was going to withdraw cash in front of this dude but I did have a couple hundred Philippine pesos. So I propose to him that even though I didn't have US dollars he could go to money exchange with these Philippine pesos. He saw the hundreds and his hand shot out, he grabbed the money and immediately turned around and left me standing there. He might not be so keen when he goes to get his US dollars, but at least he can buy coffee and a bagel.
