Any well-educated, unshowered slob can tell you: the words Hungry, Need Food, and Help the Homeless scrawled on a piece of cardboard only go so far when it comes to inducing the proper guilt in a potential donor.
After all, we're all hungry. Only the privileged few, however, deserve to bear the title of needy.
The question is: how does a foul-smelling, unshaven, groveling loser like yourself turn a passing stranger into the self-sacrificial lamb your parasitic life requires? It's easier than you think with Plea-Magic Software and DigiSign Portable Computerized Cardboard. (1)
Plea-Magic helps you find the perfect money-making catch-phrase to rake in the day's blood money. First, Plea-Magic asks you a series of questions to build a detailed knowledge-base of all your relevant flaws. Such questions may include: "Are you missing any legs?", "Do young children cry upon seeing you?", "Are rodents attracted to your hair or underarms?", "Can you pass as someone who's actually earned an honest dollar in his distant past?", and "Do you know how to fake sobriety?" Using the most cutting-edge artificial intelligence, Plea-Magic's expert system customizes a tagline just for you.
Possible attention grabbers include:
"My friends and family died tragically in a Peace Corp. bus accident while delivering food to Ethiopian babies, where I escaped just in time only to land in the middle of a leper colony where I was left with just enough strength to crawl to this very street corner and as a last resort, appeal to you, my fellow brother."
Or what about this favorite:
"My apartment and my employer's office building were swallowed by an earthquake, my comb-wielding hand was sprained in a fight with a large rich child who attempted to bulldoze my lemonade stand, and my legs have become permanently paralyzed from extended periods of excessive job-hunting, so won't you please give a nickel to help me obtain the proper nutrition a human being requires, as well as to register myself for an ample number of data-entry courses which will prepare me for the real world I'm now prepared to face?"
The Plea-Magic Satisfaction Guarantee:
If your customized plea fails to meet your expectations, and beating passersby over the head with DigiSign's magnesium tripod also fails to improve your financial standing, we will gladly refund your entire purchase price.
Footnotes:
(1) Tripod stand included.
