Les Bonnes Choses

Last week, a couple of neighbourhood girls came to the door sometime in the early evening. When I opened the door, they asked if I would donate "to charity", and presented me with a nondescript clear plastic container containing a few coins. I asked the girl who had presented the container what the charity was.

"Um...," she said, as her face betrayed a look of horror. She exchanged glances with the other girl, who spoke up after a moment.

"For kids ... who have no clothes or any food to eat or a place to live," she said. The girl carrying the change then said something else to further embellish the charity description. I forget what, exactly, because at the time, I was thinking to myself that this was the ballsiest act I had ever seen perpetrated by a child under the age of 12. Now, I should note that, even though I am willing to bet my one-and-only liver (I estimate the black market value to be $50,000, based on the $20,000 one can get for a kidney) that they were not canvassing under the auspices of any particular charity, I cannot completely rule out the possibility that they were perhaps inspired by something that some random kid did, and were going to take that money straight to school the next day, and get some guidance from their teacher. However, even if they had figured out a rather novel, if not morally reprehensible means of making a bit of spending money, I felt that the dollar I gave them from my pocket was worth the story.

And while I am on the topic of hucksters and thinking outside the box, an idea came to me this afternoon. I received a call from MNBA, telling me about their platinum Mastercard, and how they are the first credit card to be endorsed by the UWO Alumni Association. I think the telemarketer was a bit confused when I congratulated her on that accomplishment. Anyways, after I declined the offer three times, I hung up. Then part of my brain must have gotten to work on a solution to the telemarketing problem. Here's what it came up with: How would you like to get your home phone service from a phone company that automatically redirects all incoming calls from telemarketers representing some company to the home phone numbers of the members of the boards of directors for that company. That would be sweet.