Spare a moment.

I got stopped by those charity spruikers in the city the other day.

You know the ones. The girls are always British and they wear the shortest skirts and tightest tops. Like they've donated all their modest clothes to Rwanda. Yet somehow they all look like hippies still. Perhaps it's the clipboards. You don't see many people using clipboards except hippies. They seem to have a lot of documentation they need to carry around that needs to be easily accessed and written on.

The guys always look like giant douche-bags. They've got their Jeans West faded dark denim on and their popped Cotton On polo collar. But they're all so handsome. Sickeningly so. They're out there telling you about dying pandas or starving children and all you can think is, "you could be in an underwear commercial, you pretty pretty man."

Anyway so I got stopped. And I am the worst person in this situation. I once bought a shit homemade rap CD off a guy in New York. I don't even like rap music. But this black guy stopped me and I could hardly say no. It was around the time of Obama's inauguration, so racism was even less cool than usual. I certainly didn't want to offend him. He was huge and would have crushed me like a bug. Twenty US dollars later I was the proud owner of the worst hip hop CD ever recorded. I'm not even sure it was original songs. This guy could just have made a mix tape of his favourite tunes and sold it to me. I wouldn't know. That's how little I know about rap music. I gave it away. I thought that would get him back for making me buy it. He may have my $20, but I'm never going to listen to that CD again. which means I'll never recommend him to any of my friends. I guess the joke is on him.

I'm terrible at saying no. I even feel bad if I don't get a dry cleaning flyer from those people that hand them out in the city. I actually apologise. Why? I don't know. They're being paid to stand on the street and hand out paper. It may not be much, but they're getting it. And I apologise for not taking it. It's not like one sheet makes any difference to them. It's a third of the size of an A4 sheet of paper. I'm sure they're not struggling under the weight. but I apologise.

So you can imagine how bad I am when it comes to actual charity. I clam up. I've tried the old "I'm talking on the phone" trick but I bail as soon as someone says something to me. So I appear to have the shortest phone conversation ever. And they think I care much more than I do about starving sharks in Africa. They think I care so much that whatever important call I was on, I instantaneously ended when I heard them ask me if I wanted to hear about the plight of one legged men in Kenya.

For a while I got away with the old "I'm not over 21" trick, but that will only last so long. I'm walking around the city in a suit for gods sake. They're going to start figuring out I'm lying. Although it would be funny to see how long you could make that work. Imagine an old guy walking past slowly with a walking stick, maybe an oxygen tube coming out of his nose. Monocle. And they stop him and ask him if he wants to donate to Elephants Without Borders and he says "I'm sorry I'm not over 21". Would they buy that? Would they call him out on it? What would the point be.

"No you're not"
"I am"
"No offence sir, but you are most definitely not under the age of 21. You look like you're about to die."
"Well I don't care about elephants. Good day."

Anyway, so I get stopped and I spend the next 10 minutes of my lunch break being lectured about God knows what. I tuned out early on in the speech, hoping that if the girl saw the glazed look in my eyes she'd go, "This guy is a lost cause" and move on. Or feel sorry for me. Maybe if at the end I said "Huh?" she'd roll her eyes like my sisters do when they tell me something and I realise I haven't been listening so I try to cover it up with a skilful, "Yeah, totally." Eventually I manned up/hunger got the better of me and I said that I wasn't interested and thanked her for her time. Her time? Who was being the burden here? I suppose she had just filled me in on the situation of wells in Indonesia. That's handy.

I wish I could be more forceful in ignoring them though.

I saw one guy once, and I shall practice until I am as fantastic as he was. He went storming past a charity guy, he was clearly going somewhere. Had a suit on, looked important. This dick-hole from NAPLAN or APEC or something said, "Do you care about the environment sir?" as he flew by. And without missing a beat this guy has said, loud enough that he didn't have to stop walking, "Not enough." And then he was gone. He was a ghost. The spruiker looked so confused. I was pissing myself laughing by that time as I waited for the bus. Then enviro-douche came up and harassed me. I sat through his dribble for nearly 10 minutes until my bus arrived.

I must learn how to say no.