Last Updated on: 18th December 2018, 11:13 am
There were a few things floating through my head, so I figured I’d write them down together in a random thought stew.
Here’s a lesson I had to learn the hard way. Hopefully others can learn from my stupidity. Never! ever! give! to! charities! who! phone! you!
I gave to one charity who phoned. It was legitimate, nothing got stolen. But here’s where it gets fun. They put you on their sucker phone list, and all the other charities start phoning, acting like you’ve given to them before, and asking for ridiculous sums of money. Here’s how I know they have me specifically on their list. When they call, they ask for me. My name isn’t in the phone book with our number!
I was stupid once, now we’re paying for it with the deluge of charity telemarketers and their guilt-laiden scripts. “Think of the children with their burned little bodies/cancer laiden little bodies/otherwise suffering littel bodies!” I love how they all start out. “The most common donation is $150…or you could give $75, that is certainly good…or what is more common is $20.” Wait wait wait, hold the telemarketing headset! I thought you said $150 was the most common. You lying scumbags. I know about psychology. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to start out high so that $20 seems more appealing and I’m more likely to give that because it’s a hell of a lot more affordable than $150. Because of that, and because you’re hastling me, you get $0.
I also love this little line. “We can send you an invoice and you can take your time on deciding how much to give. But our computers can’t send out blank invoices, so how much will it be?” Click, buzz! “hello?”
Now I sound like an asshole. But I can’t stand telemarketers, and often, the worst kind are the ones for charities. Why oh why did I make that one mistake? One lapse in judgment, andI doomed myself!
Here’s a stupid idea. On a few crime shows,they say at the end, “The names of the victims have been changed to protect the innocent. The names of the guilty are real.” Why bother? In this day and age, if you give me the name of the guilty, I can just google him and get the real names of the victims. this stuff is public record! Why change half the names? Either change them all, or leave the real names in.
I was watching TV the other day, and I saw a commercial for the Herzig Eye Institute, and couldn’t help but think that sometimes it sounds like they’re saying the Hurts a Guy Institute. Does anyone else hear this?
Damn it! I must be getting old! I could swear there was a fourth thing I wanted to write about, but it has escaped me. Hopefully I think of it some day and it can get its own post. That wasn’t much of a stew, was it?
