Canvassed to death

OK, the summer canvasers from Greenpeace and Save the Children are bringing it on a little too hard. They are EVERYWHERE. If I leave the building at lunch, they corner me on Boyleston. Tonight I got off the T at Kendall and there were 5 young, well-meaning people from Greenpeace in matching blue shirts lining Main Street, earnestly trying to get more signatures. Or maybe it's members. I don't know because I usually just tell them that I've signed it already so I can keep going.

I know it's cruel and I really do admire these kids. I mean, they're spending their summer sweating in the sun, working for an excellent cause and it really sucks to try and get people to stop because no one wants to stop. No one wants to be distracted from their little world. It's like a harsher, more cutting version of telemarketing. They must be exhausted by the end of the day and I wonder about the state of their self esteem.

Today, though, I stopped and signed something supporting the Cape Wind project. Don't get me wrong--I'm not a bad person, I just prefer to research my charitable giving first and I'd rather do it online than in person. Also, does anyone like being guilted into something? One of the Blue Shirts said to me, "Do you have five minutes to save the polar bears?" Break my heart! I saw An Inconvenient Truth. I watched Planet Earth. I wanted to go out there and personally drag those bears to safety, even though I knew they'd eat me as soon as they got their breath back. I'm still crying over the wolves in Never Cry Wolf and the whales that Japan and Norway kill every year in the name of expensive cuisine (er, research). Don't get me started on the baby seals. But guilt is not a good motivator--it just pisses me off.