22 September 2011

Take Your Campaign & Shove It


So this girl for "[Your State Here] Campaign for the Environment" knocks on the door, and then rings the bell when I don't answer soon enough, and asks if I have a minute to talk about the natural gas drilling that's going on in our area. I tell her no, because the dog is barking like crazy, it's 8:45pm and my baby's asleep in the other room. She's adamant enough that she volunteers to let the dog sniff her and to be quick. I reluctantly give in.

She gives me her 2 minute spiel about what's going on, yada yada and what they're trying to do. I think she's cutting to the chase, but the dog is starting to bark again and I'm getting frustrated. So I ask her what she's looking for. The answer? Donations and letters to the City Council. I tell her that, honestly, this is actually something I HAVE read something about, and that if she needs my signature on a petition that I'm happy to do so, but that's about the extent of what I'm willing to do because I'm just not that passionate about it. I could tell she was frustrated at my bluntness; she handed me a flyer to read, said that then maybe I'd get motivated to act and went to knock on the door of our 70yo neighbor.

I understand that this is an issue I should probably be more passionate about, but I'm just not. I'm not apologetic about it either. The last thing I need right now is to join some committee and pledge $20 so that I can get one more email that I'm not going to read.

So this is my call to the City Council from the podium that I don't have. You guys need to listen to these people who are clearly passionate about something that you're not. You probably care about this issue as much as I do and the only difference is that you're probably taking money from these gas companies too. So get your act together and do the right thing so that I don't have passionate, hemp-wearing college students knocking on my door after dark. We're all gonna die anyway.

That's right. I said it.

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