I received an urgent e-mail from a person with whom I have a faint professional acquaintance:
"I Hope you get this on time, I made a trip to (Turkey) and had my bag stolen from me with my passport and personal effects therein. The embassy has just issued me a temporary passport but I have to pay for a ticket and settle my hotel bills with the Manager.
I have made contact with my bank but it would take me 3-5 working days to access funds in my account, the bad news is my flight will be leaving very soon but I am having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let me leave until I settle the bills, I need your help/LOAN financially and I promise to make the refund once I get back home, you are my last resort and hope, Please let me know if I can count on you and I need you to keep checking your email because it's the only way I can reach you.
Thanks.
Bev."
As much as it tore at my heart, the e-mail violated several tenets of my loans-to-hotel-stranded-people policy:
- Request must address me by name
- Request must not use words like "therein" while capitalizing words mid-sentence
- Request must not scream LOAN at me.
- Request must not appear to be a form letter with (fill-in-the-blank) country.
- Request must be from someone I've spent more than ten minutes with.
It was harder to sleep than usual that night, haunting images of her wailing and gnashing her teeth in the (Turkish) streets while clutching her remaining bags under the Manager's whip. But not much harder.
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