A television commercial came on. Sad music played over footage of elephants (mothers and babies) ambling through the wild. The earnest narrator said elephants are in big trouble. She said their very existence is threatened. But, she said, I can help save them if I sign up to make a monthly donation to this charity whose mission it is to save the elephants. And if I sign up to make a monthly donation, the charity will send me an “adorable plush elephant” as a token of appreciation. It was a cute little stuffed animal intended to make me feel warm and fuzzy about donating to save the elephants.
And then another television commercial came on. Sad music
played over footage of polar bears (mothers and babies) ambling through the
wild. The earnest narrator said polar bears are in big trouble. She said their
very existence is threatened. But, she said, I can help save them if I sign up to
make a monthly donation to this charity whose mission it is to save the polar
bears. And if I sign up to make a monthly donation, the charity will send me an
“adorable plush polar bear” as a token of appreciation. It was a cute little
stuffed animal intended to make me feel warm and fuzzy about donating to save
the polar bears.
I could see where this could easily turn into an addictive
and expensive hobby for me. I’d sign up to make monthly donation after monthly
donation and receive cute little stuffed animal after cute little stuffed
animal to add to my adorable plush menagerie. Save the whales? Save the
porcupines? Somebody stop me before I
donate again!
And then another television commercial came on. This one
didn’t have sad music. It featured a couple of smiling crippled kids. It seemed
their very existence was threatened, too, but they were much more cheery about
it because they knew they could count on people like me to save them by signing
up to make a monthly donation to a children’s hospital whose mission is to save the crippled kids. And the crippled kids said that if I signed up I’d receive an
“adorable” gift as a token of appropriation.
I was psyched to call the number on the screen and make my
pledge right away because I couldn’t wait to receive my adorable, plush, stuffed crippled kid. It
would be the crown jewel of my impressive collection of species I helped
save.
But it turned out that the adorable gift the crippled kids
were offering was just a blanket. Can you believe that? A goddam blanket!
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