Well Played, St. Judes, Well Played Indeed.
I get a handful of those address labels throughout the year. Not ones that I order or anything, but the ones that various charities send to me to elicit me to send them cash. (if I ordered them, they’d probably have anatomical parts or the three wolf moon on them or something)
They’re usually corny things, ladybugs and smiling faces and shit. So normally, I toss them into the recycling bin, knowing I don’t exactly want to say that my name is “Mrs. David Harks” or anything. Because believe it or not, when I got married, I KEPT A NAME OF MY OWN.
Anyway. Not a huge fan of those charitable stickers.
Don’t get me wrong – I donate to a couple of charities religiously: Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep and March of Dimes (soon enough Band Back Together!), but I don’t have the fundage to donate to every stinking thing that wants my cash.
Yeah, I’m looking at you, Jimmy Motherfucking Wales.
That’s why, when the Sarah McLaughlin “Angel” song pipes up on one of those ASPCA commercials, I have to turn the channel before I start throwing wads of cash at the television screen. I mean, could they GET any more tear-jerking? I think not.
(dramatic foreshadowing) Rather, I THOUGHT not.
So quickly, I change the channel and pretend that I’m not weeping into my Diet Coke. Because Lord knows, I cannot afford to pay off yet ANOTHER person to prevent them from telling the world that I do, in fact, have feelings.
But last night, I saw that I got yet ANOTHER set of address labels. Addressed to me: Ms. Becky S. Harks. Finally, my ACTUAL name. I could USE those for the Christmas Cards I’ll forget to send!
“No,” Ben and Daver both chimed as I opened it. “YOU DON’T NEED TO SEND THEM MONIES.”
My resolve strong, I was all, “I’m too GOOD for charitable tactics. I can TOTALLY use these stickers WITHOUT forking over wads of cash. I CAN FUCKING DO IT. EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER!”
And then I saw it. The letter.
Yeah.
You got my formerly sick kid’s NAME on top of your letterhead. Nice job. Now I HAVE to give you money.
Jesus, could you stick the knife in any deeper?
“Guys,” I said, tears pouring, “I have to send them mah monies.”
“NO,” they said, almost in unison. “Becky, c’mon!”
“LOOK.” I thrust the paper into Ben’s hand. Immediately, his face crumpled, his eyes just a little moist (he clearly never paid me off to tell the world he doesn’t have feelers).
Then I handed it to Daver, whose face did a similar crumple.
“Okay,” they agreed. “You do.”
It looks like you’ve won this round, St. Judes.
Jimmy Motherfucking Wales? You can blow me. Hard. In fact, I sorta wanna to pull a John C. Mayer on you now. WATCH OUT JIMMY FUCKING WALES. I’M ON TO YOU.
Yes, St. Jude’s does it to me all the time. They are damn good but I guess that’s why they kick ass in their treatment center and not charging people that don’t have the money! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go make sure I don’t open any of those envelopes lest I give them my child’s diaper money.
They’re such a GOOD thing that I cannot possibly deny them. Obviously.
When the local students collect for juvenile cancer, their line is this, “Do you want to help cure kids with cancer?”
It seems really really hard to say, “no.” without my brain filling in the rest of the implied sentence, “No, I don’t want to cure kids with cancer.”
RIGHT. Exactly. The guilt tactics work EVERY time.
That happened to me at the food store. The cashier went “Do you want to help hungry children?” I looked her in the eye and we went “NOPE!” not because I’m a heartless bitch, but because a. I hate manipulative tactics like the way that is worded and b. if i donate, i will do it on my own to reap the tax benefits, not so your company can. Rawr.
I go with, “I’ve already done my part this week. But thanks for the loaded question!” 🙂
oh that was just low and dirty St Judes. Im afraid you now have to sell all your three wolf moon paraphenelia and pimp out your monkey butler so you can send them ALL THA MONIES.
RIGHT. I should send them a kid.
I’ve known from day 1 you have a heart! No, I don’t want your money either! St. Judes does awesome work and deserve your monies, honey! 🙂 Amelia, Dave, Ben, and even I am happy you sent your monies to them! 🙂
Awww! You’re so sweet. I love you.
Wait til you see the St. Jude’s commercials on TV… talk about breaking my heart. They show kids in various stages of treatment accompanied by the most haunting music ever. I can’t even watch the whole commercial (though it’s much, MUCH longer than your typical commercial). I want to say to St. Jude’s, if I send you all my money, will you stop showing this commercial? Please?
Yeah, they got the marketing thing DOWN. I swear they probably do profiling to get us to fork out more money. But hey, if that little kiddo gets the treatment then by God, take my money in exchange for some envelope labels. Take it!!!
Oh my god that ASPCA commercial with the Angel song is evil. When I had cable (and I was still living with my ex) I would start bawling every time it was on and he would ask me “why do you do this to yourself?…..turn the damn tv off!”. Now I don’t have cable (cuz I only need internet in my life) and I don’t feel like Jimmy Wales is as heart breaking as the ASPCA commercial!
Agreed! Especially about the ASPCA commercial! I have to stick my fingers in my ears and sing LALALALALALALALA until it’s over! And I LOVE animals, all mine are rescues. But I’m so broke even super glue wouldn’t help. And now for an off topic question? I’m a relatively new prankster and I keep reading references to John C. Mayer of a not-so-nice tenor. Please can someone enlighten this newb? Thanks ever so!
St. Judes never spells my name right. I am using the notepad at work though, without guilt. Now I have even less guilt because you gave them money, so I don’t have to. That’s how that works, right? I know someone who gave, and that lets me off the hook.
St Jude is evil! I send them my monies every month. So now whenever I rub my 2 year olds chemo bald head I put $20 bucks in his piggy bank. Damn you sad commercials. #leukemiacansuckit
St. Judes helped my sons best friend kick a brain tumors ass…so it woukd have got me too. Me n Gavins mom are like sisters it was like my iwn kid getting cancer…
Aunt Becky… I wanted to let you know that today I googled whore hair and guess who was on page 3 of the pictures?! That’s right, Chicky! YOU! I almost used it, but I don’t like to steal images from people who’s blogs I read! 🙂
OMG…I’m sending Jimmy Wales 7 pennies right now…..
I also support St. Judes, because I am all for their policy of giving treatment even if a family cannot afford it. As for the ASPCA, no freakin’ way ever. As far as I’m concerned they can shut their whore mouths. The money that is sent to them is not used to help animals. Most goes to marketing and paying Sarah McLaughlin to use her face and her song in their commercials. Here’s a couple nice infographics about PeTA, and with a little research you can see that the Humane Society and ASPCA are no different. http://www.petinsurancecomparison.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/peta_infographic_final.png, http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/peta/peta.jpg. I refuse to support Sarah McLaughlin while she supports these monsters. St. Judes can have her money instead. Keep on, keepin’ on Aunt Becky and enjoy the address labels and notepad 😀
I did it. I sent St Judes monies years back in my son’s name and when they forced me to choose an honorific for a then-three-year-old, I chose Rabbi. So my son has a whole sheet of address labels of his own that read “Rabbi Fergus S Wylie”. I stick them on everything, they crack me the fuck up.
I totally forgot to LOLZ it up over the ASPCA advert…effing Sarah McLaughlin. Damn her straight to homeless animal hell.
Im putting a care package together for Jimmy Wales right now…. its a box full of SUCK IT!
You know what that wasnt enough….. so Im sending another box full of SUCK IT!
St. FUCKING Judes. Thank you for writing this. They’ve got me handing over the monies on a direct debit every month because I thought it would be like hush money and if I did it they would stop sending me pictures of beautiful children with horrible cancers, but NOOOOO! They hit your bitch ass up even harder once they’ve got you on the line. I refuse to open any mail whatsoever from those mother fuckers anymore because them and their beautiful sick children can get me to wire them money in tears at a moment’s notice – so I opened private Swiss bank accounts I don’t have passwords to so that my husband will have the money each month to buy food for our children and still pay for access to OWN. Mother fuckers. Get me every time.
well of course you had to send them monies……..there was no alternative. your heart shines bright……i can see it all the way in oregon.
I can’t turn that commercial off fast enough … I think it ended Sara McLaughlin’s career! And the stickers! I’ve learned to use the stickers without reading the letter first!
You know what? yesterday when I saw the Jimmy Wales ad, I felt so bad for him that I almost considered opening a pay pal account just to send him some money. I should be slaughtered for being such a sucker!!!
They send me address labels weekly. My ex tells me the same thing. YOU DO NOT NEED TO SEND MONEY! I can’t use the labels and NOT send them my money. I can’t throw away perfectly good address labels with MY name on them. Its a problem. A bigger problem then I realized. What a marketing tool. Address labels + Guilt= donation. Now they have taken to sending cute little matching notepads. I picture the children stuffing the envelopes for some crazy reason….
am I nuts?
As someone who grew up in Memphis and had classmates whose sister was treated there, I thank you for your donation!!
Thanks from a St Jude mom! My husband first became a partner-in-hope after seeing a commercial in college at 4am as he was trying to shove down a burrito never knowing that St Jude would save our son’s life years later. They will find the cure! Thanks and please keep supporting our MIRACLE factory!!!
Ps….. I only came across this because I googles “st Jude address labels” . I seriously need some more