Who put the Fun in Fundraising?

There are usually kids hanging around the bowling alley the night my league bowls. Seems innocent enough, but I've begun to notice that these kids can be dangerous. Apart from the virus dispensing qualities all children possess, these children and children all over town, are often selling things.

I've developed a defensive strategy though. Since I'm about the same height of an average sixth grader, I've stopped making eye contact with anyone shorter than me, lest they be pedaling a selection of overpriced cheeses, chocolates, holiday candles, popcorn or wrapping paper.

Is this what we've come to in this country? We've turned our nation's school children into door-to-door salesmen? Worse than that even, since if they were at your door, you'd have the option of not answering. Instead these little sales-cherubs are everywhere. At the bowling alley, at family functions, at mom and dad's workplace (often by proxy), at church, at the mall and always at Wal-Mart!

And they're never selling anything I need. Or want. Or would end up buying for myself at some point. How about a nice selection of wines or something? Of course not.

And what are they raising money for anyway? When you consider the devastation caused in this country and around the world by natural disasters, well, it puts a "band trip to Toronto," pretty low on the list of "causes" I'd like to support.

I wonder who thought up the "fundraiser business model" in the first place? I suppose on some level you could say it fosters good self-esteem, since, I imagine it takes a lot of effort for the kids to drag those sales brochures all over town and pass them around to hoards of people -- people who may or may not lick their fingers as they peruse the pages before handing it back to the kids who stuff the sales sheets back into their book bags with unwashed little hands.

Hmm, now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure there was a Pfizer logo on the last cheese tub I bought . . .