The Today Show keeps featuring this couple, Ann and Vernon, who lived in Mississippi and lost their house. They have cute accents and love to talk to Lester Holt. Today Ann was showing him a crumpled glob of toilet paper that she and Vernon were coveting. They said it's an in-demand commodity.
All the death, destruction and looting has made me sad but this made me really sad. I wanted to reach through the TV and give them one of my 124 rolls of toilet paper. I mean, not having TP is a new low. In fact, Vernon suspects the people in their shelter will soon riot. I don't blame them.
So I donated a little bit of money to the Red Cross, thinking that would make me feel better. But I really want to physically help somehow. I could serve food, clean, and even hand out rolls of toilet paper. But here's the thing, when you call the Red Cross you can't be picky about which disaster you want to help with. So they could say, "Oh, you want to help out in the Dallas area?" and I would say, "Yes, I hear there are some shelters here..." and they would say, "That would be great. Someone's house caught fire in South Dallas last night. You could go there and sweep up some of that mess..." And I can't say, "No, Red Cross! I don't want to help just anybody, only victims of Hurricane Katrina. Don't you know there's a TP crisis going on there?" I'd just have to get my broom and go.
This is not the first time those sneaky Red Cross people have pulled one over on me. After the Aggie Bonfire I tried to give blood. Yeah, me and the rest of Central Texas. So I get there and there's this long line and I say, "Oh, do you have enough blood now?" and they say, "We're always in need of more blood." And you can't say, "But I don't want my blood to go to someone who was just in some isolated car accident. It must go to an Aggie! An Aggie who was hurt in the bonfire!" I mean, you just can't place these demands on the Red Cross. So there I was, getting a needle poked in my arm for who? I sure don't know.
I fell for it again after 9/11. I was trying to give blood to the people of New York and Washington D.C. but who knows where they sent it? Probably to some kid in Dallas who hurt himself jumping on a trampoline. I mean, he should have known better! Does he really deserve my blood?
The Red Cross isn't the only sneaky organization. I had an incident at Sephora too. Yeah, the fancy beauty store. We were putting together a care package for a friend who had survived breast cancer and we went there to get some lip gloss. It's not that she really needed shiny lips but apparently the proceeds of this particular lip gloss would go to breast cancer research. So we ask the salesperson about it and he says, "I don't know about that but we do have some lip gloss that benefits 9/11." Oh, so now I can help the victims of 9/11? Great. I'm focusing on breast cancer here! One cause at a time please.
I guess all you can really do is hope that if you're helping out in some other way (like giving blood to trampoline boy), they'll have more resources to go to the cause you really want to serve. I know, helping out indirectly doesn't feel like much. But in the end, it means that Ann and Vernon will get their TP.
Come on, blog readers, I know you have at least $20. And older blog readers, it IS safe to use your credit card over the Internet:
https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp
4 comments:
I like to think that if your money/blood does go to an unrelated cause, it's just because the Red Cross has sent all their local reserves to the disaster and are not able to help the people of Dallas. Think of it as the trinkle down effect.
That's what I was trying to say!
I guess all you can really do is hope that if you're helping out in some other way (like giving blood to trampoline boy), they'll have more resources to go to the cause you really want to serve.
Oh, and I meant trickle...not trinkle.
I thought you meant "tinkle" and you were bringing the toilet paper theme full circle.
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