do you want cancer awareness with that?

i'm out on the road. this morning i took a bazillion beautiful pictures and found a couple dozen (!) new campsites and later on i'll have pictures and stuff for you, but for now i want to talk about this:

today i had to get things in three stores. in two of these stores i was asked very aggressively if i wanted to buy an additional item to support cancer awareness.

jiminy! not even cancer research, or services for cancer patients! and how many cents on the dollar, i wonder, go to this "awareness" and not to product sales themselves? promotion?

i mean, who's NOT aware of cancer these days? every other product in the supermarket has a pink ribbon on it fer pete's sake, and i guess fractions of pennies from those items get poured into the coffers of that one very well-marketed organization and maybe we're all supposed to feel like buying these products will ease our collective guilt that we're not doing anything real to actually HELP people.

you want to make a difference? volunteer at your local respite house, or working on a habitat house, or the food shelf, or actually give money -real money, and not a fraction of a penny for some extra piece of crap you don't need- to an organization that's working for a cure, or for patient services.

ask hard questions about how much of your donation goes to work and how much goes to "admistrative costs". ask how much goes to actual people.

so. the girl behind the counter says to me "i know you just bought a package of markers and a package of pens, but do you want to buy another pink pen for cancer awareness?"
"no, thank you."
"are you sure? it's for cancer awarness."
"yes, i'm sure."
"but it's for cancer awareness, it's cancer awareness month."
"yes, everyone i know is aware of cancer. do you have a promotion for ALS?"
"uh, probably in the future. but this month is cancer awareness month."

this conversation really happened.