When it comes to charity, I give a little here and there, but for the most part my generosity doesn’t go much beyond buying Newman’s Own Sockarooni pasta sauce. I know that there are cleaning ladies out there who manage to save thousands of dollars and donate it all to the college they could never afford to attend in their youth, but I don’t hold myself to that level of philanthropy. I’ve never done a benefit walk; I’ve never sponsored a child in Somalia; and the Peace Corps is the toughest job I’ve never had. I’m fine with that. So why, then, am I hit with a guilt pang whenever I get home and throw my day’s accumulated change into my coin jar?
    This is a recent development, because I thought I was over the idea that I am not entitled to my own spare change. My lack of compassion was forged during a trip to India in my senior year of college. Three white boys traveled to New Delhi to visit our friend Krishan, and we were all immediately appalled by his lack of sensitivity to the plight of others. He picked us up at the airport, and at the first red light the car was besieged by beggars in various states of decrepitude. Krishan banged his watch against the window in an exasperated “get out of here” motion, and we were all taken aback by his callous disregard for this heart-wrenching tableau of human suffering. “Just wait. Your attitude’s gonna change pretty quick,” Krishan told his righteous guests. He was correct. By the end of our trip, the pleas of lepers, amputees and adorable grubby waifs alike were met with cold rejection. The sheer magnitude of it all had blown the main switch of our sympathy circuit breakers.
    Which brings me back to Boston, and a dilemma faced by anyone who lives or works in the city: Having change in your pocket has become a guilt-laden experience. It means you didn’t put it into the cashier’s tip jar or give it to the homeless guy on your way to work. In the latter case, the last time I gave change to a panhandler, I fumbled around in my coat pocket as I walked by and came up with three coins—all pennies. He peered in his cup and uttered a sarcastic “Wowwwww.”
    Another story: I was eating lunch on the Common last summer when a guy came up and asked me for 50 cents. I said I didn’t have any change. He said, “Oh, well if you’ve got a dollar, I can give you change,” and he proffered two quarters. “Why, what kind of a backwards bumpkin do you take me for?” I said. “If you’ve got 50 cents right there in your hand, then you certainly don’t need 50 cents, now do you? Good luck finding someone gullible enough to fall for that ruse, you crafty rapscallion!”
    Actually, I gave him a dollar and he walked off with it.
    Besides being mocked and outsmarted by panhandlers, my other problem is that I tend to moralize to them. I realize that I shouldn’t do this, but it’s natural. You know the rationale: If I give this guy some money, and he goes straight to the candy store and buys Gummy Bears and gets cavities, am I really helping him?
    Perhaps that line of thought is really nothing more than another way to justify my high level of change retention. I don’t see change as a throwaway item. When I bought my first car, part of the funds came from our household change jar, which I relieved of its pennies—all 6,000 of them. I had to do more rolling than Willie Nelson, but I amassed $60 in a unit of currency so loathsome that it’s given away in trays at convenience stores and flattened into Goofy-imprinted keepsakes by machines at Disney World.
And tedious change-rolling work like my pennython isn’t even necessary any longer, since the local Stop ’N Shop has a Coinstar automatic change-counting machine to render your coinage useful. The last time I dumped my hoard into it, the Coinstar spit out a check for $42 after taking its 8.9 percent cut. Even this inanimate object, however, lays on a guilt trip by asking if you want to give part of your check to charity. Hey, you just took 8.9 percent, why don’t you give that to charity, Coinstar? Sorry, I shouldn’t be so hard on Coinstar Inc. The company does give nonprofit groups that process at least $1,800 a big $25 rebate on their $160 service charge. How generous of them.
    I’m sure my tightfisted ways are probably causing me bad karma. Maybe I can even the score by making a wish for world peace in the Copley Place fountain. I just hope world peace doesn’t require quarters, because I’m saving those for the laundromat. *