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November 15, 2005
RSPCA and Remembrance Sunday; nothing escapes my wrath...
At the moment NaNoWriMo seems to be taking up every spare hour I have, which wasn’t many to start with I can tell you and possibly all my patience too.
Anyway you should be grateful I didn’t post on Sunday where I was going to get all snarky about Remembrance Sunday. Well OK not Remembrance Sunday as such but I couldn’t help wondering if Tony Blair used his 2 minutes silence to plan his next move on Iran. How that man sleeps at night I’ll never know.
Secondly it really does stir something with in me to see those elderly men and women still marching along even though they can barely limp and I am truly grateful to them really I am. So grateful in fact that I absolutely goddamn refuse point blank to sing ‘God Save the Queen’ I mean what is that all about? Which limb did she sacrifice for our freedom then? And don’t get me started on how apparently William or Harry (I never know which is which) is off to join the army. I somehow can’t quite see the second in line to the throne dodging suicide bombers in frontline Basra, soon to be Tehran. I wait patiently to be proved wrong.
Right so I’ve just about covered Remembrance Sunday, now I move on to charities, the RSPCA in particular. I got this phone call yesterday, as usual when I was right in the middle of cooking dinner. The conversation went something like this;
‘Hello Ms Elephant my name is .... and I’m phoning on behalf of the RSPCA. I would like to start by saying that I am paid for making this call but I do not receive commission. Is that clear?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Well I would like to start by thanking you for your very generous monthly donation and to let you know that your money has gone towards helping us set up the Cruelty Line. Have you heard of our Cruelty Line Ms Elephant?’
‘Yes’ I lied because as I say I was busy and didn’t need an explanation of what the cruelty line was. I could kind of more or less work it out myself.
Enter here long winded rehearsed speech about RSPCA’s utter greatness and how they help thousands and thousands of cute fluffy animals every day.
‘Anyway Ms Elephant unfortunately so many calls to our Cruelty Line go unanswered, so we are stepping up our campaign by contacting our regular donators and asking if they could cripple themselves further by giving three times as much.’
(OK so he didn’t quite put it like that but that was what he was asking of me)
‘Well I am awfully sorry, Mr Whateveryousaidyournamewas, but I already do what I can. I’m out of work you see. I’d love to give more really I would but I’m afraid it’s just not possible in my situation.’
‘OK I understand Bye.’
Please tell me, you too would feel slightly piqued at this phone call.
Now let’s get this straight. My fiver an month, which I can’t really afford as it is, (because hello we bring up a whole family on what makes most single 18 year old students cry into their watered down piss at the injustice of such a pittance) Is spent paying this man’s wage, so that he can phone me back to beg for more because in the time it has taken him to talk to me, so many calls have gone unanswered on the cruelty line. Wouldn’t the resources have been better spent paying this man to work on said Cruelty Line in the first place?
Just a thought..
Posted by purple elephant at November 15, 2005 08:52 AM