Chuggers

It seems to be quite fashionable to hate chuggers these days. Well, you know what? Sometimes ‘fashionable’ isn’t a bad thing.

But surely any work for charity can only be a good thing, right? Well, no, actually. Consider this: If I were to sign up for one of these ‘take £3 out of my account every month’ things that the so-called ‘chuggers’ are trying to con you into, it would be a whole year of my payments before the charity got any financial gain from it. Put another way, it takes a years worth of one person’s payments to pay for the smug, bib-wearing hippie type to stand on the street harassing people. And most people cancel their payments after six months anyway.

‘Have you got a minute to talk?’ one said to me once, as I walked past. ‘No’ I replied. ‘DON’T YOU CARE THAT CHILDREN ARE BEING ABUSED?!’ she made a rather loud point of saying. Err…excuse me? Don’t come at me with your false ‘holier than thou’ attitude and try to make out that just because I don’t stop and talk to you I must be some child-abusing tyrant. For all you know, I could devote every spare minute of my time to helping those less fortunate than myself. And what makes you so perfect? If you’re so bothered about it all why don’t you do this for free? Or stop bothering people on the street, get a job in Woolworths and donate a percentage of your earnings to the charity that you are, apparently, so passionate about?

Today, as I was walking down the street minding my own business, as I often do, a young bib-wearing lady said to me, ‘You look like you’d like to adopt a granny.’ That’s it – a simple, precise statement. I look like I want to adopt a granny, do I? I mean, really? What the fuck are you talking about? What granny-adopting qualities characterise my appearance that other, presumable granny-hating, people don’t possess? You see, if they weren’t so fucking mindless and patronising, I might be inclined to donate some money - direct to the charity, though, obviously.