While waiting in line at Ralph’s last week, something hellacious distracted me from my surreptitious attempts to read The Enquirer’s headlines about Kirsty Alley’s ass cellulite. The checker passed a palm-sized cutout of a shamrock to the philanthropist in front of me, who was now not only making my ice cream melt so she could write her name in calligraphy on a piece of construction paper that would forever immortalize her generous donation to charity, she was also setting me up to look bad.
The thing is, I hate that moment just after I’m asked, “Would you like to donate a dollar to children’s cancer research?” Because even though I know I’ll do it, I know I’ll do it reluctantly and with a frustration I’m incapable of hiding. While my mouth is utilizing every ounce of strength to form the word yes, my brain is screaming, “No. No I wouldn’t, see? Because then I’d have one less dollar to put toward my Ben & Jerry’s versus Godiva versus Haagen Daz taste test research. I only have three pints of premium dessert flavors here! Can’t you see I’m only buying the necessities?! Clearly I do not have a dollar to spare!”
And it’s never even some generic charity, either. It has to be some ridiculous need that you actually have to think about for a second, like Jesus Christ what kind of world are we living in? I just wanted some Chunky Monkey and now I’m all worried about some insane cause, the name of which is as long and painfully drawn out as the patient’s suffering. Would you like to donate a dollar for Blind, Diabetic, Infant Refugees with Spinal Bifida who Need New Prosthetic Arms so they can Swat at the Flies Buzzing around their Sunken Eye Sockets?
AHHHHH!!!! Fine! Fine, of course I would and you can send them my ice cream, too, because now I’ve lost my appetite and it’s not just from thinking about flies landing on malnourished skulls, but from the disgust I feel toward myself for feeling angry that you’ve just burst my delusion bubble where all that mattered in life was celebrity gossip and dark chocolate fudge ribbons.
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I always say this:
“Oh no. My husband and I have our charitable foundation make all donations annually.”
That makes them think we are Mr. and Mrs. Bill Gates or something. WHICH I LOVE. Because I live the in the OC and I like to pretend to CARE and that I am really really rich.
All I know is if that magazine subscription guy knocks on my door one more time I’m telling him I just made my yearly gift to the Marcy Massura Foundation:)
Damn those charities and their manipulative visuals. I gave away a good chunk of my earnings to the Humane Society until I canceled my membership, thus stopping the delivery of newsletters depicting the horrors of puppy mills.
Oh, man, and those Sarah Mclachlan ads? They make me sob scream like Will Farrell even when I’m not pmsing. Put those on during “that time” and I may as well have myself committed! I get it, though, I mean it always works and we can only stay in our bubbles so long;)