Mountains, Hills and Charity

There it was. A white-sloped mountain that I had been staring at for what seemed to be forever. Each time I had taken steps towards it recently, an aura of deep-seated fear had overcome me. And the farther away I was from it, the larger it became.

You see I had come to understand its makeup over the years. Flecked with green notions and unbelievable promises of happiness on the exterior, the black heated cauldrons of evil lay within. Even reaching one's hand toward it, sore fingers begin to tremble with unintelligent remorse. The interesting dilemma was the anticipation of uncovering what actually had to be dealt with versus the colorful flutterings of meaningless and annoying trivia.

Oddly enough, I was absolutely in control of just how high and menacing the mountain grew. I knew this and had tried over time to arrest it. It was really quite simple - it boiled down to self-discipline. The method called for addressing the debris on its way in, each and every day. The problem with this particular approach was that at the end of the period, the small hill that slumped against itself was almost entirely black. It was, indeed, much more menacing than its predecessors. Not as high, but ultimately denser. It would allow no unfocused climbing; rather its intensity called for blatant demands without the soft wafting of ancillary interruptions.

So what was worse? A high colorful mountain or a stolid black hill. The former, the former, the former.

With these thoughts in mind, I packed my quills and ink, my vellum, stamps, and labels and approached. I spread out my campsite and drew quarters to organize the fruits of what was destined to be an archeological finding event.

One for the "nice to see I still have it" group, one for the "discard quickly or it belongs to others" group. Another for the "I want to revel in your pages and not buy" group. One for the "Pick one charity to give to" group, and lastly the "Oh god that's due and I have to pay it" group.

Ok so now you have my drift.

On this particular occasion, I'm going to vent about the one group that troubled me the most. "Pick one charity to give to". The pile was huge and was predominantly made up of fat promises of living better in the afterlife if one participated. Two of the notable requestors had included one silver coin that was inserted in an exterior window on the front of the envelope. Why? I mused. I just did not understand the concept of a charitable organization giving away money to promote giving. Who would do such a thing? Were they not asking for contributions? I mean, to me the message they sent was .. we have too much so therefore, we're going to give some to you.


And then, on the same theme, you have multiple organizations sending you your own personal address labels - thick wads. Why? I mused. Again, why in their wildest dreams would charitable entities think that by spending countless money on self-stick labels in a country that is optimizing paperless billing .. where ecards are now coming into their own, and where someone, somewhere, is trying to figure out the next generation of home-delivered mail. What a waste!

Enough. I must away .. back to the mountain. Until the next time, I will remain, planning my next attack! Merliz