Thank you for your generous donation

“… if you would help us by sending notes to your family members and friends, asking them to help support our cause? We are sending out drive kits in January.” “Sure,” I said, “Let’s do that.”

Now, I know how this conversation is supposed to go. Someone asks me to volunteer my time and I say I’m busy. Next thay ask me to make a donation from one of these fantastic levels with fancy names like “Gold level: $150,” “Supreme benefactor: $100,” or “Adequately involved: $25.” If I hesitate, thay say “Or whatever you can afford. Many people are donating just $10. Any amount helps…” That’s usually the point where I make a decision: I pick some number that feels reasonable, or else I resolve to wait tham out. I’m too polite to hang up first (even though I know it happens to tham all the time and that by cutting off the conversation early, I’m saving tham time and effort... I still can’t just hang up on anybody). If I choose to wait tham out, I respond to everything pleasantly but negatively. I’ve never changed my mind during thair endgame.

Waiting for the phone solicitor to give up takes time. A lot of them are surprisingly persistent. When I’m too busy for the series of rewordings of the same basic plea, I choose some amount to donate (“Any amount helps…”) and request whatever option is fastest. (“Please send me a reminder letter so I can try to get matching funds from my employer” works well.) Even busier? I’ll choose the “brass level” or “adequately involved” as soon as they name it.

So when the Alzheimer’s Association representative called in early October, she caught me at a busy time… so busy that I was actually tempted to hang up on her. She said, “We are sending out drive kits in January,” and I thought:

• If I say “yes,” we’ll be done. That’d be great.


• Hey, I’ve never said “yes” here before. I wonder what happens on this path.


• January is forever away. I could be hit by a bus before then and not have to do it.


• Does anybody say “yes” here? I’ll bet she’ll have to check with her manager or something to find out what to do. Maybe she’ll say “Okay, you’ve my bluff. We don’t actually have a program like that. Can you just donate some money?”


• If I say “yes,” we’ll be done.


• Can I really ask people for money?!?


• Remember “Still Alice?” Alzheimer’s is one of the worst things ever. Maybe they can wipe it out. These are the people trying to find a cure.


• If I say “yes,” we’ll be done.

My kit actually arrived in late December. As I struggled to decide who I could possibly send these requests out to and what in heaven’s name I could write that wouldn’t make it sound like I was asking for money when I asked for money and why did I ever volunteer for this in the first place, I remembered that I’d rather discuss loss of control of bodily functions than money. I don’t ask people for money. I don’t even like to sell things; I’d much rather just give them away. I hate the question “How much did you pay for that?” So how was I going to appeal to people for… money?

In the end, I wrote “Anything you can do will be great!” (notice that I didn’t even mention money) and sent these things out to parents and siblings (my own and –in-law) and a few of my closest friends. I never mentioned the requests in person, just let the letters speak for themselves. I received a good number of replies and the number of people I became estranged from is actually very small.

Will I do it again? Probably not. I’ll spend the rest of my life with residual stress about whether I offended anyone by asking for donations. Maybe, since I know the routine, I’d be slightly more likely to volunteer my time, but only if I could think of a number of family and friends I wouldn’t mind losing. That means I’d have to get some new peeps, because I really like all of my current ones. Also, the mystery is gone. I’ve been disillusioned of my idea that I might get to hear the person say, “Oh, no! Nobody says they’ll help here. My script just ends!!”