ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

When I used to work for my old company, it was situated in such a way that if you were coming from the Kansas side, there was no way to avoid having to drive crosstown through either Westport or the Plaza.  And frankly, both of those places are shitty to take a car through.  Westport is full of people plunging into traffic without looking because they’re so intent on finding an art show or perhaps a new bong or a vegan bakery.  Country Club Plaza is full of people plunging into traffic without looking because they’re so intent on getting to Brooks Brothers before all the other rich hausfrau.  

At least, that was my problem before I learned to take the side roads in between the two neighborhoods.  

But before I learned this, the Kansas City Star would do this thing where sometimes people from the newspaper, who these folks really were, I have no idea, would march around at that big intersection where JC Nichols and Main Street and Emmanuel Cleaver all converge.  For people not familiar with the area, two relatively parallel streets taper to  almost a point at the same time that they are crossed perpendicularly by a third street.  So you really have a couple of intersections all in a very small space.  It’s kind of a terrible thing. 

My usual strategy for coping with these people was to keep my fingers crossed and hope that I didn’t get stuck at one of the red lights, because what these people would do is as soon as traffic began to slow or stop, they’d wander in and out of the cars, going directly up to car windows and trying to get people to make donations or buy a paper or some other godawful thing.  Even a child could see that this is a bad idea, to mill around in traffic amongst the idling vehicles of people they are currently angering.  

Anyway, twice I was unlucky enough to actually get stuck at a light while this happened.  The first time I stared straight ahead at the red light, while someone came up and tried so hard to get my attention that they actually rapped at my car window, and drove off as soon as the light turned.  Only to get stuck at the second light and have the same thing happen all over again when traffic couldn’t creep up fast enough as drivers tried to avoid getting charged with vehicular manslaughter since these idiots still hadn’t gotten out of the street.  

The second time this happened, I wasn’t prepared and I’d had my window down anyway and I accidentally made eye contact with one of them and the person rushed over and asked me to donate money to “provide donuts for the homeless”.  

“What?” I asked stupidly.  

“Donuts,” the person repeated.  Like I was the retarded one.  ”For homeless people.”  He leaned on my car window, so I gave the guy $2 from my ashtray to get rid of him.  

And I don’t know I was thinking about it again today, but at the time I was completely consumed with how stupid I thought the whole thing was.  Because I can think of many things the homeless want and need more than sweet fried dough.  Like alcohol, meat, and sturdy outerwear.  

I guess where I’m going with this is that if you make a donation, you should make sure it’s going to something you actually approve of.  In my case, I threw away $2 to buy junk shit for homeless people who deserve real food instead because I wanted to get the person to go away, but in general, I try to check things out and see what will really happen with my money and what kind of things the organization supports.  For instance, I never give to the Salvation Army because they’re anti-homosexual.  Ha, ha!  Bell ringers HATE it when you respond to their badgering with this.  Lots of charitable organizations provide help to people in need, but some of them withhold that help from those who don’t support their faith, or provide it only if they are allowed to aggressively promote their religious agenda with those people.  Since I believe that is patently unfair, I refuse to support charities like this.  

I give to organizations like the United Way instead, because they are a secular organization that helps people without a bunch of religious strings attached.  When you think about how you can make a difference, look at what an organization really does and decide if you think it really helps people in a way you agree with.  Many Christians boycott United Way because of their affiliation with Planned Parenthood for example.  Good for them.  I support United Way for exactly the same reason.  

Think of the money you spend like a vote.  Every time you spend money on a charity or a product, you’re voting for that product.  Make sure your vote goes for the things you believe are important, that’s all.