My greatest weakness?

Anyone who knows me know that it's very, very difficult for me not to finish the food on my plate. I feel really bad if there is any food leftover, and often, I'll eat until I'm too full. (Thank goodness for doggie bags) It's just the way I was raised - you don't waste food. I will eat my rice until the last grain, I will drink my soup to the last drop, and I will make a random stew from whatever tidbits are left in my fridge (before it all goes south, of course).

Along those lines, I can't resist free food. Part of it is I don't want it to go to waste (since usually, everything is thrown out afterward). The other part, is... I don't know! Maybe it's still residual programming from college, but if there's free food around, I have to check it out. I often have to make myself not eat anything or take anything (because usually I'm not hungry or I don't have anywhere to put the food at the time).

What's worse, is if I'm hungry, and I see "free" food out, but it's not put out expressly for me (or whatever group I'm with), then I have a weird inner dilemma. On the one hand, I'm hungry. And I like to take advantage of not having to spend money on food as much as possible (the frugal side of me). On the other hand, the food isn't really for me. But usually, the food is leftover, or whomever it was for has finished (you know, like buffets set out for conferences, etc). So I take some. But I feel really guilty.

Yesterday, I also saw this lady on the subway asking everyone for money to help feed her children. Her story was that her husband died recently, she lost her job, and her relatives won't help. So far, nothing new. You will see this on the subway all the time. What was different, was this woman was white. And she looked fairly OK, in terms of not what you think when you think someone who is asking for handouts. I think more people gave money to her because of that. You never know when the need is real, though, because you always hear about people who panhandle and make good money, live in an apartment, etc.

However, I also know how desperate you must be if you are an honest, hardworking person to have to ask for money. Once, I was at the airport and I literally was short 40 cents for my train fare home. I didn't have any more cash, and I didn't have my wallet for some reason. I ran through my options, and I ended up asking strangers for change so that I could get 40 cents to make my fare. It's just 40 cents right? But that's always the story you hear when panhandlers come - "I just need enough money to take the bus home. Please help me with some change." That must have been how I sounded. Most people just walked by and gave me nasty looks. But a few people actually helped me and I scraped together the 40 cents I needed. I wonder if the fact that I looked like an innocuous Asian kid helped.

I also wonder how you can tell if the story people are telling is for real or not. How can you truly judge need?