If there is one thing I've learned from media outlets and popular culture, it's that those damn bleeding-heart liberals get nowhere. So throughout my young adulthood, I cultivated a very successful, frosty exterior: I am rarely PC, I can fake a very authoritative phone voice, and I like to make frequent self-deprecating jokes about being the "ice queen."
This is all crazy talk. I feel bad for everyone and, as I've described previously, everything. If a Publix cashier asks me to donate $5 to a homeless baby campaign, I do it; if a credit card machine gives me the option to donate a dollar to injured penguins, I press the necessary button; play the Sara McLachlan animal ad and I will -- quite literally -- sob every single time.
In a way, this quality isn't a bad thing -- it means I care about homeless babies and injured penguins and puppies with dirty fur. The problem is, if I don't work to cover this up around friends and acquaintances, I will almost definitely be stomped on like a welcome mat. I just can't have it getting out that telling me you need money to treat your dog's kidney disease will have me cracking the nearest ATM open with a keychain bottle opener. I mean, think about it: there are pretty much endless ways to take advantage of a person as weak and intensely sympathetic as myself. I have the kind of temperament that pretty much shatters my ranking in survival of the fittest.
After dealing with me sporadically for about seven years now, the owner of my place of employment has, naturally, kind of caught on to my inherent weakness, and I have slowly but surely been discouraged from making company donations to any sad-looking child that walks through the door with a collection jar. As a result, I've developed a relatively painless deferment plan: "I'm so sorry, but I can't take money out of the drawer and the owner isn't in!" I smile empathatically and give the pity-inducing party a business card with which to contact the owner with further donation inquiries, and boom, situation resolved.
A few weeks ago, however, something went very, very wrong. I was perched behind the counter, submitting (very poignant) cover letters and resumes to various job postings while the sole customer dazedly turned the belt rack over and over. It was a slow afternoon, kind of rainy, and I had pretty much resigned myself to hanging around in case of a four o'clock rush, closing twenty minutes early, and moving my "real job" search back home for the evening.
While I was mindlessly clicking "upload" and "send," a middle-aged guy in a sports jersey came in holding a clipboard and an envelope. Oh no, I was thinking. None of this today. By the time the poor guy was up to the register, I already had my mouth halfway opened and my sympathetic smile posed to deploy. Then he pointed at his ears. Huh. He stood there a minute, locking eyes with me, and then pushed a flier across the counter. Deaf Bowling League Seeking Donations for Community events. OMG! It was too late! My mind was clouded with a yearning to help this poor ear-pointing deaf man, and there was no possible way to say no if he had ix-nayed verbal communication from square one. I was overwhelmed with the peculiar ache of absorbing the outside world's problems into my own sense of guilt and responsibility. I did some instant math in my head. $20 would be kind of careless to take out of the drawer. $10 would probably be passable, and I could just take another $10 out of my own wallet -- because, somehow, I had already subconsciously ascertained that the deaf bowling league needed exactly $20 for its community events, and I couldn't send the poor deaf man away with any less. I gave him the "one moment!" finger and dug through my purse. I grabbed the money from the drawer and passed the wad toward him, writing the business' name on the blank line he pointed to.
The deaf bowler pulled a little sheet of sign language diagrams out of his pocket and uncrumpled it on the counter. He pointed to the "I love you" one and did it like three times at me. I didn't know how to communicate "I care about your bowling league deeply and want the best for you also," so I just nodded and smiled and wrote a very awkward sticky note about a deaf bowling league and a sad man and $10.
Afterward, when the dull ache of accepting responsibility for all the world's ills had worn off slightly, I started to think about it. Not to be unsupportive, but I can't really figure out why deaf people need a bowling league and donations for said league. What does a keen sense of hearing really have to do with bowling? And why would deaf people be unable to afford bowling? It's not like it's a bowling league for blind lepers who are unemployed -- that would make total sense. Blind lepers would need personal assistants to help them aim the bowling balls and control their spore-releasing condition, and unemployment would make it basically impossible to afford that. Deaf guys, on the other hand, would probably just need a tap on the shoulder at closing time.
But at least I can sleep well knowing I bought the deaf bowling league a pitcher of beer.
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