It's the Principle of the Matter

Let it never be said that Val is not a charitable being. She has her standard causes to which she donates yearly. Sometimes TWICE, if she forgets that she gave, and those greedy nonprofits keep sending her begging letters.

I don't mean to appear parsimonious, but there are times when I am unwilling to give.

Take that weekend before Labor Day weekend a while back. I pulled T-Hoe into a parking space at Voice of the Village. A 44 oz. beverage was calling my name. Since that was all I planned on purchasing, I only took my refill cup and the 80 cents I picked out of my change bin.

As luck or Even Steven with an axe to grind would have it, I was accosted by a beggar the minute I rounded T-Hoe's front bumper and stepped foot on the sidewalk. This was no ordinary beggar. No unkempt long white beard, no stocking cap, no fingerless gloves, no feet wrapped in rags. Nope. It was an urchin beggar.

Let the record show that it WAS the last weekend of August. So Urchin Boy was clad in the unofficial uniform of all male Backroads youth, those scraggly stretched-out shorts your older brother won't wear anymore, a misshapen white t-shirt with no slogan, and ripped-out sneakers that had most likely spent half the summer in the river. Urchin Boy ran up to me and thrust out a bucket. "Would you like to donate to Muscular Dystrophy?"

"I'm sorry. I only have this change I'm spending on a soda." I strode past his receptacle before he could offer a counter-argument.

Here's the thing. I'm not so sure Urchin Boy was really collecting money for Muscular Dystrophy. He was not alone. There was a mama and papa and several other urchins, and their apparent friends, all standing out front taking up most of the sidewalk for Voice of the Village. Not one of them had on a t-shirt that might identify them as official collectors. There were no banners or signs on the building. The containers were not marked. I'm sure they had permission from whoever was in charge of Voice of the Village that day. But that doesn't necessarily make them official collectors for the MDA.

I'm not trying to be snobby. Just cautious. If you say you're collecting for a well-known cause, you should probably have a collection receptacle that is not the same shape and size of those gallon opaque plastic ice cream tubs for generic dairy treats, with a ragged rectangular hole cut asymmetrically in the lid.

Just sayin'.

I bought my soda and dashed back to T-Hoe while Urchin Boy was approaching somebody coming the other way. Could I have spared some lottery ticket money to donate? You bet. But I kind of like to know where my money is going. If you want it for bail money, for school clothes for your kid, for a night at the casino, for a heapin' helpin' of heroin...just be honest. Or entertaining.

You never know. You might catch me in a giving mood.