In San Fran I was walking down the Haight and this young-looking guy came up to me and said, “I’d love some food... it’s my birthday!” I was immediately like, “Bull shit. Everyday is your ‘birthday’ isn’t it?” At that point he showed me his Minnesota license, I ate my words, and he ate the pizza I bought him. 
His name was Ponder—not by birth—his actual name was Jeff. He called himself Ponder, so I did too. We talked about how he’d been on the road for 4 months traveling from city to city as he gets restless. He was surprised to learn that our lives were not much different. We'd both been traveling across the country. We both declared Montana to be the prettiest state. We both love travelling, geology, live music, and 80s movies.  We decided that getting out and seeing things is the most important aspect of life.  And we both enjoyed the veggie pizza from Escape from New York Pizza. We then went separate ways.

Three days later I found myself in line for a slice of pizza at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Vegas with $12 in my pocket. I took out my cash looked at Kat and said, “I hope this is not one of those $12-per-slice-of-pizza places.” At that point the man beside me informed us that it was actually exactly one of those $12-per-slice-of-pizza pizza places. He bought us our slices. 
Kevin (generous pizza-buying guy), his 2 friends, and Kat and I all shared a cheers of pizza and sat down to eat. We told them our back story, including how we got our swanky dresses at Goodwill, and they realized we were not who they thought we were. We looked very Vegas, which we really are very not. We started talking and found out they were solidly in the controversial 1% (their words, not ours). They were in Vegas for a financial investment conference. (They could have been lying, I do realize). 
Eventually we got on the topic that all financial investors must love to talk about—money. I told him (head finance guy, not Kevin) that I don’t like how money makes people. I told him that I think it fosters a sense of greed and untrustworthiness in society—you know, all that hippie, communal, mumbo jumbo that I believe. He told me that money is good, and that he donates to charity, and that he is a good person. He grew up on welfare and now is a multimillionaire, and if he can do it, anyone can. It was interesting to get someone from the top 1%'s mindset on politics and the economic state of the country. 
Basically he represented it as: if you aren’t rich, you didn’t work hard, or you worked hard in the wrong field. There was also the big one: If I made the money, the government should not take it away. 
He really believed this, and it really rubbed me the wrong way for a number of reasons.  However, I didn't think he was a bad person by any means, just a misguided one. He, of course, thought the exact same of me. It went back and forth in a somewhat heated debate until 4 in the morning, and we both agreed to disagree. He then added the last line of, “When you have money, expenses, and taxes, you’ll understand.” 
He ate his words when he realized that I pay a higher percent in taxes than him (self-employment sucks), and that, hang on, I have to go pay my mortgage payment. 

So 3 days, and 2 very different pizza dinners later, people are not always as they seem. Myself included.

-Phoebe