THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503220021
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL MOMENTS
SOURCE: BY KEITH MONROE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
FROM 5 TO 7 in the evening, it is no longer the dinner hour. It's the solicitation hour when hucksters call to pitch everything from aluminum siding to shares in zircon mines. Just as you get a forkful of food near your mouth, the bell tolls for thee.
Maybe that's why I only half listened when a call came in a month ago. Something about some disease, blah, blah, blah. Would I object to having a kit mailed to me, blah, blah, blah.
Next thing I knew, I found myself a block captain. Apparently I had volunteered to go door to door soliciting funds from my neighbors for a worthy cause. But no matter how good the cause, I was a terrible choice for fund-raiser.
For starters, I don't know my neighbors very well. Also, people have never shown much inclination to give me money when I request it, even those I work for - let alone strangers. In fact, I couldn't sell water to a man on fire.
So I did what came naturally. I procrastinated, putting off the grim duty of begging for charitable donations - and being rejected - for as long as possible. With one exception. I begged my wife to accompany me on my rounds. Eventually I wore her down and she graciously consented to help.
``All right, quit your whining, you miserable little twerp. I'll help you ring doorbells, but if you ever sign up for this kind of thing again, I'll chop you into messes. They'll be raising funds for you.''
Who signed up? It was more like the Army. One minute I was trying to do justice to a plateful of dinner, the next I was a volunteer for a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. But too late to complain now, so off we went with me reading grisly facts about how many Americans succumb to this vile disease every 10 seconds.
Luckily our route was a mere seven houses long. The first home appeared to be abandoned. Good, good, we both said under our breaths. ``I think I heard they're in Florida,'' my wife said. So we left literature hanging on the doorknob.
At the second house it was the same story. Nobody home. But the third had real potential. There were five or six cars in the drive. Still, we hesitated.
``What's wrong?'' I asked.
``I don't think anyone's here either,'' she said.
``Are you kidding? It looks like a used car lot. Somebody's got to be home.''
``Well, even if they are, I don't think they're very fond of us.''
Turned out, I realized, she was just as unenthusiastic about putting the arm on people as I was. Still, we approached the door gingerly and knocked meekly. We needn't have worried. The residents were no more interested in being solicited than we were in soliciting. If they were home, they were cowering out of sight of all windows until we trudged on our way.
And so it went. Two more neighbors weren't home or at least refused to come to the door. And a third house, where a mad dog cavorted in the fenced yard, we dismissed out of hand. Maybe he wasn't actually mad, but he certainly was testy. Was it worth risking one disease to raise funds to defeat another? We thought not.
Delighted with this rationalization, we rounded the turn for home. But as we approached the last house on our list, our luck ran out. Sitting in the drive was a mother and two kids. We were actually going to have to execute our pathetic attempt at a sales pitch.
But no sooner did we announce our cause than this Samaritan congratulated us on our civic-mindedness and wrote us a check. If we'd known it was that easy, we might have tried harder (and earlier) to contact the rest of our neighbors. As it was, we took the donation and returned home.
Trying to look on the bright side, we told ourselves that we'd managed to raise funds from 100 percent of the neighbors we'd actually been able to contact in person. Somehow that wasn't very consoling since it still left total contributions at one, and total funds raised at less than the goal for our block.
We were forced to conclude we were failures. If we'd been in charge of the fight against polio, Dr. Salk would still be waiting for a check to arrive in the mail. But that thought helped us see how we could feel better about our inadequacies as charity volunteers and double our success rate in one easy step.
We wrote a check of our own to meet our goal for the block and declared victory. MEMO: Keith Monroe is an editorial writer for the Virginian-Pilot and has no
plans to pursue a second career in fund raising.
by CNB