I looked at myself in the mirror trying to find even a tiny clue about why I have been so attractive to those donation organizations. Every time I go through the City Walk, as long as there is someone who is doing themoney collecting work, they always come to me (except the old man in his Salvations Army uniform. He is an all-year-round money collecting worker. Guess he must have gotten sick of doing anything). Do I have a donation-appealing face?
The donation talk normally starts from these following questions such as”How old are you? Oh, really? You don’t look like 32″, “Do you work? Do you pay tax?” or “Do you have children?” They are just trying to makesure you are capable or legible to give money.
I have met people from human rights organization and WWF. The first one was a 20s guy who asked me to help women who have been mutilated so I could become a human rights fighter. Who cares? Or do I have to do that to become a human rights fighter; otherwise I am a bad person? I said”no”. He kept asking me to think about it by saying “come on, it’s not very hard for you”. He repeated it at least 4 times until the green light for the road crossers was on.
The second one from WWF was a lady who asked me if I know what the WWF stands for. I said I don’t know. She got surprised. Why should I know? Then she took out a piece of paper with many world issues like “water pollution”, “natural resource decreasing” and “wildlife problem” and so on, with each issue having a small picture beside. She asked me which one I think the most important issue at this moment. Gosh! How would I know? I just picked the one which has a better looking photo. She even didn’t pay much attention on what I did. What she wanted to do was just to ask me to become the membership of WWF. Well, she said “I am not looking for the money today, just the memberships”. Bullshits!!!! What does a membership mean? To get a free 20 pages issue every month? Forget it. What they want was to get money from your tax deduction to make you a membership. “Will you help it?” She asked. I said “no”, very firmly and walked away.
Anyway this was not the worst situation I have ever met. The worst one was I had been trapped with an Oxfam girl whose name was Melissa beside the pedestrians area for nearly half an hour before the Xmas holiday. Her first question was “do you know what the first cause of death is every year?” I blinked my eyes, told her it might be starving. She smiled and said it’s just the third one. The first one was Diarrheal. Okay, thanks very much. Very well-educated!! What’s the next? Of course it was to convince me to give away at least 15 dollars every month to help them. I said “no, I can not make a decision right now because I need to talk to my husband first”. She asked me if I could leave the contact to her. I felt a bit guilty to refuse her request since I already had been so brutal to refuse to help the people who died of diarrheal. She started to take down my address in some form and there were even some blanks for the credit card number info. I became very alert. “No,what are you doing? I can not give you that…..”
At this moment, another staff from Oxfam came to me and enthusiastically congratulated me to joining their donation list, he even wanted to do a “give me five”with me. “Hang on”, I said, “I didn’t agree to give anything yet. How could you people do this to me?” They got frightened by my anger. She stopped what she was doing and apologized. I insisted to get me rid of their any list right now and she was forced to cross off all she had written and tear the paper off in front of me. One week later, I rang the Oxfam head office to once again make sure my name was not in their list because I don’t trust her.
This incident was shocking!!!! It was even worse than coming across a robbery on the street. They don’t carry a gun but carrying their smile to make best use of your human being’s guilty and kindness to rob you. Really ugly!!!!
After I went back to the office, I told this to two of my colleagues. One girl suggested me next time to say “I am just a student and have not earned any money yet” considering my face does look very young to make them believe I am still a kid. Another guy from RMU seriously reminded me that some people get paid for doing such things and he suggested me to tell them “I am very busy. If I want to help, I would contact your head office directly”. This was not a bad idea, indeed. Nobody really likes to be asked for money on the street when they are not ready to give away or have no much time to think about how they would involve their kindness in an action of helping those misery things happening on the earth. Anyway, people, even those richest people in the world, need time to consider then make a rational decision, don’t they?
That’s why I like the way that Red Cross does. They have a big white truck right acorssing the City Walk,with the large printing words “don’t ingore the need for blood” on the side. They never came over to ask for your help but you know they are there and you also know that there is always some need for blood that you might help them out.
这 次的龙虾还是选的我们喜欢的葱姜味。2.5公斤的，单价也自上次爸妈来后涨了好几块钱。不过味道做得不错，吃得我们热乎乎的，再加上Emma带来的 2002年的Shiraz，掺点Black Berries和Blood Plum，恰好中和的Shiraz的酸，带出一点微甜的后劲儿。天热、人多、气氛浓，吃着吃着就有点心神恍惚、废话乱说了。我自己也不知道自己叽哩呱啦地 说了一堆什么话，反正是一会儿损人、一会骂己，又笑又侃，两眼儿就没睁大过。等吃完后再到街上的人群里一挤、一晒，就更没有人样儿了。腆着个肚子，懒洋洋 地走来走去，想起一会儿要去买菜觉得真是个负担，这会儿显然该在哪个树荫底下睡一觉吗！
