Florida or Bust

The teen subway candy beggars are getting a bit bolder (and smarter from a marketing perspective) and taking their business off the 6 train (did that sound like the beginning of a news article, or what?). Tonight on my way to the wine store (yep, Pinot Grigio with my solo pork chop and tater tot dinner ... what of it? I'm a classy broad) I was stopped in windfully-saturating sideways rain by two very well-dressed young men holding clipboards with xeroxed pages that had school logos on them and looked very well-signed-up-for. One of them rattled off a speech that began with, "Hello, ma'am, I'm sorry to bother you on this lovely evening" (because fat, wet sideways rain is very lovely indeed) and ended with "Help us buy shoes for the basketball team so we can get to Florida." It's probably a sign that I've lived in New York too long that, first of all, I immediately said, "No" and felt very imposed upon, and second of all, a string of one-lineresque and jaded thoughts came to me: "Are they mentioning the shoes particularly because they're actually planning to walk to Florida?" "I wonder how many of the names and amounts on the sheet are made up to try to trick people into giving." "I wonder how much the adult that's orchestrating this elaborate fiasco is making off these kids, and what he/she is telling the kids they will get out of it." I found it pretty bold that they weren't even giving anything in return (usually they're selling Skittles from a beaten-up-looking M&Ms palate). I was not feeling compelled by the brief, wishy-washy feeling of skeptical satisfaction I would get from forking over the $10 that was in my pocket (and was going to go towards the wine). I was much more swayed by and excited about the impending head lightness I was about to enjoy with my pork chops.

I remember when I was married a lifetime ago (and it really was a lifetime ago, so don't panic about my emotional state or anything) a group of high school kids once came to our door in St. Paul, MN selling magazine subscriptions. At first we thought it was a situation a la Orlando Jones in "Office Space," where they were trying to sell us multiple subscriptions to Ebony, but then we realized they were the ones being duped by some adult promising them something in exchange for executing a grand, down and dirty marketing/money-making scheme. We fed them and tried to talk them down from their publication-peddling cult once we figured out the situation. They had come in on a bus from somewhere in Wisconsin for the weekend and were told they would win the chance to win a trip to California if they worked. The bus would drop them off at various apartment complexes for several hours at a time, and they'd have to work their way up and down the halls to fill their quotas. Still, just because I know there is a whole crazy scene bordering on child slavery doesn't make me want to do anything but be annoyed.

I'm pretty compassionate (ask anyone), but I really do have to be selective about the lost-cause falling stars I hitch a ride with these days. I have to reserve that special space in my heart for dysfunctional yet endearing romantic relationships, borderline toxic friends and family members that I have to talk to because they're related to me.