The guy didn't look too good, a little shaky, grime-sheened khaki pants. But then, I didn't look too good, either, not at 9 a.m. the morning after a newspaper night shift, heading into the Stop & Shop with $50 of my 83-year-old mother's money, two 20s and a 10. I was going to buy her milk, juice, muffins, couple other things.

And the guy stopped me out in the parking lot, just as I closed the door to my truck.

I put my hand in my pocket because he had the nervous, half-shy look of someone who's about to ask for spare change. I felt two quarters, a decent score for a panhandler. I give money to bums on the street because my father used to give money to bums on the street. It's a family tradition.

But the guy didn't want money. Talking fast, he explained that he wanted me to use his EBT card, buy $100 worth of groceries and then give him $50.

It was only 9 a.m., and I was already getting a chance to double my money.

I should have just said "no" fast and kept walking, but I made the fatal urban mistake of stopping and thinking, so the guy repeated his offer.

"You get $100 worth of food for $50," he told me, figuring he was closing the sale.

I've noticed, by the way, that the better you're doing financially, the more likely you are to say "groceries" instead of "food."

"I need some food" and "I need some groceries" are very different-sounding statements. The first sounds like you're hungry right now. The second sounds like you're going to walk the air-conditioned aisles and do "a little shopping." For fun.

I turned the guy down, and I asked him if he wanted the two quarters I had in my pocket. He did. He thanked me, too.

My widowed mother lives on a fixed income, and at 83 she still works part-time. She's got a nice apartment, a car and food to eat.

But she's not so wealthy that the chance to turn $50 into $100 is a small thing.

I treasure my mother, and being an only child, I'm her only prop, her only defense, the person who does for her the things she cannot do for herself.

There are some kinds of money I don't want. My mother's the same way. I couldn't give her $50 I made by helping some junky hustle the welfare system. I couldn't do it even if I didn't tell her where I got the money. I believe in my mother. I believe in her way of living, in her principles.

Every dollar bill looks like every other dollar bill, not like people, who look different from each other. That's why people are better than money, because of the variety.

Campaign finance is much in the news right now, and increasingly, campaign finance has the ungraceful immediacy of a junky in a parking lot, wheezing corrupt breath in you face as he tells you he can double what you got in your pocket.

You're a candidate, and you're supposed to have this vision, this political party, these beliefs, and you're supposed to value those things so much that you won't take dirty money, not even if it will help your cause.

And until you feel that way, Mr. Candidate, you will always take the junky's deal.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.