Opus 2011-309, On the Street: For the Children

Last Saturday the door bell rang.  I answered it.  So far, so good.  I said politely, “Yes?”  From their it want down hill.

A lady was standing in front of me with a clip board in her hand.  She told me she had come to collect for painting our house number on the curb.  Excuse me?  We already had a number on the curb.  Yes, but this is with new, improved, reflective paint.  I told her I did not want a new, improved, reflective number on my curb.  The old one was just fine. 

Evidently this group had gone around and left flyers saying that they would be coming through and painting numbers.  If we did not want the service we were supposed to let them know.  Since I never saw the flyer and did not want to ask, I don’t know what I had to do.  I said I would not pay for something I did not want.  I was polite but said I did not like to be manipulated.  I pointed out how the public school where I teach uses the technique of negative notification to keep parents out of the loop.  If they want to subject the kids to something they don't think the parents would approve, they send home a flyer in a stack of other papers and tell the parents if they don’t want it to happen to their child they must tell the school by a certain date.  This way, when the parent finds out after the fact, the school can claim that they were informed.  It works on any pet project from sex education to scoliosis screening.  I also shared how my union made me drive all the way across town if I did not want money taken out of my check for a political action committee that stood for everything I hated.  I do not like to be manipulated. 

She wasn’t listening.  Her last plea was that it was for the children, a charity.  She was even wearing a t-shirt that said it was for the children.  Don’t I care about the children?  It used to be that people said the last refuge of scoundrels was patriotism, but now it is the children.  I thought of how I paid when some enterprising young people came by one summer on a summer job and asked it I would like it done for a fee.  Fine.  Free enterprise I can support, manipulation for the children I can’t.

I kept my money.  She got to keep her clip board and t-shirt.  I have not checked to see if they actually painted the numbers or if they came by and crossed them out.  Next time they will probably just add it to my property tax.

homo unius libri