If you've ever had the misfortune of using public transportation without your iPod (what, not everyone has a $400 toy?), you know the subway panhandler's routine. But can you make that routine work for you? Yankee Pot Roast offers some tips for effective begging:

Make sure your story is rife with characters and settings into which the straphangers can sink their teeth; provide a bicycle chain of narrative events that does not go astray for a sentence. Once the straphangers are confused, and once they start wondering who did what — i.e. who lost the job, who wants the money for the basketball team, who isn t a sherm freak, who wants a hot meal, who s good with tools, who wants some spending money so they don t have to chop you into pieces when you get off the train — then you have wasted your opportunity to get these people to care. Do not panic. Overcome your storytelling weaknesses by having James Earl Jones tell your story, play some patriotic music on a tape recorder, and, space permitting, provide the straphangers with some of the finer sipping chocolates and a thirty-seven pound wheel of brie. Try to make some connections.

How To Get A New York City Straphanger To Bankroll Your Alternative Lifestyle [YPR]