Its for children
I just got back from the grocery store; I got home from work and remembered that I forgot to buy quarters so I could do laundry tonight. There wasn’t anything terribly unusual about going to this particular store — it’s where I normally go for quarters and to get a haircut at the in-store barber, though strangely enough not the place where I do my regular grocery shopping. Instead I go to a store of the same chain that is further from my apartment, simply because it’s the one I found first upon moving to Milwaukee.
My shopping habits are not the subject here, though.
As I walked in, there was a younger woman standing behind a table, soliciting donations for some charity or other. We’ve all seen the drill: buy this caricature paper cutout for $1 and write your name on it so we can post it all around the store. Paper cutouts on parade. I didn’t listen really at all to the gal’s barking, I simply said, “No thank you” and proceeded to the bank line behind her.
But then came the extra push. As I worked my way to the teller window, I heard her charging in my direction: “Its for children!”
Wham. Pull at the guilt strings. If I said yes, I look like I genuinely care for the children. “Oh, I had no idea. We must protect and save our precious little ones. By all means, please take my $1. Do you have a special if I buy $5 worth?”
Of course, there was always the alternate of acting as a hostile, evil bastard. Which in the end, by my lack of a response, I’m sure that was the avenue I chose.
Think about it, though; whenever an argument isn’t going your own way, pull out the children. Who can argue with them? So often it seems we are exploiting them for our own mental well-being. “I’m a good person, I gave $1 today and bought a cutout shape to go up on the grocery store walls. That surely counteracts all the rest of my bitchiness this week.” Maybe instead of doing things just for the children, we do them for ourselves and our own personal growth and discipline.
Or maybe we just accept the fact that we are selfish, evil, hostile bastards. Whichever works.
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Daniel Ross-Jones serves as Minister for Youth & Young Adults at First Congregational Church of Palo Alto, United Church of Christ. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area for a time still measured in months, he is frequently getting lost and discovering treasures of a landscape very different from his Upper Midwestern roots. Green Jello Hotdish is a blog exploring the intersections of his days. 
