VERSES FROM THE ABSTRACT #6 by Nobby V

Were I Stricken With a Bout of Philanthropy, To Whom Would I Give My Money?

A woman came to my work the other day as a representative of a well-known charitable organization. We were all herded into the Training Room to listen to her sales pitch about why we should give some of our hard-earned dollars to her charity. She related the story of her brother, who dove into the shallow end of a swimming pool while drunk and broke his spine, leaving him paraplegic. She continued on about the tough road her brother has had battling alcoholism and how he never could have made it this far without the help of charity, and shouldn’t we all contribute to help those like him? Hmmm, here’s a guy that’s obviously a complete fuck up: he’s made a life-changing mistake, and obviously learned no lessons from it. He continues to pound the booze and be a prick to his family. So what should we do? Chip in to help bail him out, of course, while desperately hoping to staunch the flow of blood from our own hearts. There’s no better charity than helping those who refuse to help themselves, after all.

Wikipedia says that a philanthropist is someone that donates their money, time or reputation to a charitable cause. Though generally lacking both items one and two, and with a reputation that would not secure two grains of rice for a starving Nigerian child, occasionally I find myself in a position to be charitable to an organization. The dilemma that I encounter at these (rare) times, though, is the process of sorting through the thousands of charities to find the one deemed “most deserving” of my money.

In general, I despise people. The thought of contributing to a cause that could result in their numbers actually increasing turns my stomach. Imagine MORE congestion on the highways. Imagine MORE Mongos trying to figure out the Self-Checkout at Home Depot on a Saturday. Now imagine that you had a hand in their existence on this Earth (beyond fathering them out of wedlock).

Take cancer. I’ve donated to the Dana Farber before. Once. Fucking saint, right? I was drunk, and hitting a “triple” by donating $75 to the Red Sox drive sounded fun. Next best thing to lining a shot into the triangle at Fenway. There are almost a million deaths a year from cancer in this country alone. Can you imagine if every year we had an extra million people wandering around the mall like overfed cows, when all you want to do is get to the damn Verizon store to get your broken cellphone fixed? Part of me argues that cancer is one of nature’s ways of keeping population growth in check. I’m not especially enthused about my $75 going to offset the hospital costs of some 78-year-old two-pack-a-day smoker who has come down with lung cancer. What if they get better?

So who then? What, so you’re homeless, living on the streets, talking to no one in particular while you soil yourself? Fuck you, buddy: there but for the 70 hours a week I work go I.

Then, one day it hit me: the kids. The goddamn kids. The goddamn, innocent, smiling kids. They didn’t do anything to deserve the horrific fate of leukemia or being born with their organs on the outside or a whore of a mother who can’t afford to raise her ninth child and puts it up for adoption. They’re just kids. Just a reminder this holiday season before you drop $100 on another inflatable Santa riding a Harley for the front lawn.