This weekend I went to Safeway with Dave. Outside the store, as is often the case with grocery stores, there was a person asking for signatures and donations in the name of her cause. Her particular goal was to make pet abandonment illegal, which I think is fair enough, so I stopped to listen to her talk about it.
Unusually, she was asking for a $10 donation in order to "join" the organization (which organization it was never became clear to me, exactly). At first I balked at the price of signing, but maybe I've been watching too much West Wing or something, but I decided that this was an opportunity for me to exercise democracy. So, after shopping for various materials with which to make red beans & rice (did you know Safeway doesn't carry ham hocks?) and a roasted chicken and a toothbrush and what have you, I went back outside with cash in hand and told the woman to say what she had to say.
This woman was a little bit dirty. Her operation was shoddy at best, with weathered signs and a 50-cent notebook on which to collect signatures. When I came back outside to sign up, she was eating a corndog. She needed to set the corndog down in order to point to various things, and I offered to hold it. But the corndog was sliding down the stick and I tried to lightly nudge it back up and she adopted the tone of someone who is about to be done a grievous wrong.
"Don't touch it," she said, putting her hand to her forehead as I unwittingly disobeyed.
Ok, so the crazy lady had a corndog, but did she have politics? I guess I'm not sure. She talked about traveling with the one group of animal activists who are still trying to make law, and thus are not eligible for federal grants. She talked about how difficult the fight was, how only one person (not me) had signed up all day, and how frustrating and ridiculous it is to pass law. She also mentioned that her group had made animal cruelty illegal in California.
It was a little difficult to believe that she was responsible for the entire legal battle for animal rights. But I didn't know. And certainly, an unpopular group that needs to ask for large amounts of money from squeamish shoppers has the chance to become bedraggled. So I signed up. Despite her somewhat OCD tendencies, she seemed sincere, and she had the manner of a person who has had to deal with a lot of fuck-ups (she made me stay for an extra few minutes while she checked over what I had written for legibility, for example).
And I didn't really care if the money ended up going to food for her, if her signs were shams. And I did, in the end, feel like I had participated in something. Democracy now?
Unusually, she was asking for a $10 donation in order to "join" the organization (which organization it was never became clear to me, exactly). At first I balked at the price of signing, but maybe I've been watching too much West Wing or something, but I decided that this was an opportunity for me to exercise democracy. So, after shopping for various materials with which to make red beans & rice (did you know Safeway doesn't carry ham hocks?) and a roasted chicken and a toothbrush and what have you, I went back outside with cash in hand and told the woman to say what she had to say.
This woman was a little bit dirty. Her operation was shoddy at best, with weathered signs and a 50-cent notebook on which to collect signatures. When I came back outside to sign up, she was eating a corndog. She needed to set the corndog down in order to point to various things, and I offered to hold it. But the corndog was sliding down the stick and I tried to lightly nudge it back up and she adopted the tone of someone who is about to be done a grievous wrong.
"Don't touch it," she said, putting her hand to her forehead as I unwittingly disobeyed.
Ok, so the crazy lady had a corndog, but did she have politics? I guess I'm not sure. She talked about traveling with the one group of animal activists who are still trying to make law, and thus are not eligible for federal grants. She talked about how difficult the fight was, how only one person (not me) had signed up all day, and how frustrating and ridiculous it is to pass law. She also mentioned that her group had made animal cruelty illegal in California.
It was a little difficult to believe that she was responsible for the entire legal battle for animal rights. But I didn't know. And certainly, an unpopular group that needs to ask for large amounts of money from squeamish shoppers has the chance to become bedraggled. So I signed up. Despite her somewhat OCD tendencies, she seemed sincere, and she had the manner of a person who has had to deal with a lot of fuck-ups (she made me stay for an extra few minutes while she checked over what I had written for legibility, for example).
And I didn't really care if the money ended up going to food for her, if her signs were shams. And I did, in the end, feel like I had participated in something. Democracy now?
posted by Adrienne Celt at 5:53 PM
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