It's that time of year again. That time when everyone feels obligated to play their part in relief of world poverty and global warming, saving polar bears, curing cancer, or whatever it is that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. One can hardly move in shopping centres for the hundreds of volunteers dressed up as childhood cartoon characters, shaking yellow buckets at passers-by. After emptying my wallet into the hand of a grown man in a Tigger suit, I decided enough was enough, and as much as I support the Marie Curie Cancer Trust, Unicef, Norwood, and the British Red Cross, I could not help but feel guilty that I was not the one shaking a bucket at innocent strangers.
So it came to be that I gave up my Saturday to schlep the whopping FOUR tube stops to Brent Cross station, where the RockCorps "Pump Up" volunteer team was supposed to meet at 11am sharp. As always, I had overcompensated for travel time and sat, at 10:33, on an ice-cold bench to wait, shivering, in the snow. At 10:50, I began to wonder. Surely the team leaders should have arrived by now? At 11am, I still appeared to be the only person to show up, and as I slowly began to lose feeling in my extremities, I began to panic. Fifteen minutes later, and the leaders still were nowhere to be seen. Other volunteers arrived looking toasty warm, bundled up in coats and hats and gloves and snoods. Eventually, at half past 11, the leaders arrived, at which point we trekked through the unyielding blizzard to Brent Cross shopping centre. Cursing my choice of canvas shoes that morning, I wondered if my toes still even existed, and whether I would ever feel my fingertips again.
Finally, we arrived at the centre, and sat in the blissful warmth of the charity reception room filling in the necessary(?) paperwork. Name. Age. Phone number. I amused myself by filling in the anonymous research form- Sex? Transgender. Education? PhD. Sexual orientation? I don't know. Nationality? Jamaican.
At 12:35, we had split up into our teams, and, sporting embarassingly bright yellow high-visibility jackets, were ready to set to work. At which point our fearless leader slid calmly back into the room to announce: "Unfortunately, because of the snow, the centre's closing in twenty-five minutes... sorry guys." I glanced out of the window at the blizzard and desperately wished for the ability to fly, simply to be able to get home.
My mood momentarily lifted by the hot volunteer (whose name I can neither spell nor pronounce) who asked for my number, I jumped aboard the 142 and prayed for the snow to vanish for twenty minutes so I could get home to a nice cup of tea. The bus journey home that normally takes me twenty minutes, took two hours and eighteen minutes, halfway through which my iPod and my phone decided to simultaneosly run out of battery. I think it may be safe to say I have never been so bored in my entire life.
Walking through my local shopping centre with a friend three days later, I heard the familiar sound of chinking coins on plastic, and turned to see a man dressed as a Christmas angel shaking a yellow bucket at me. I briefly considered my failed attempt at charity, and reluctantly dropped a few coins in.
Merry Christmas, Marie Curie. Merry bloody Christmas.
So it came to be that I gave up my Saturday to schlep the whopping FOUR tube stops to Brent Cross station, where the RockCorps "Pump Up" volunteer team was supposed to meet at 11am sharp. As always, I had overcompensated for travel time and sat, at 10:33, on an ice-cold bench to wait, shivering, in the snow. At 10:50, I began to wonder. Surely the team leaders should have arrived by now? At 11am, I still appeared to be the only person to show up, and as I slowly began to lose feeling in my extremities, I began to panic. Fifteen minutes later, and the leaders still were nowhere to be seen. Other volunteers arrived looking toasty warm, bundled up in coats and hats and gloves and snoods. Eventually, at half past 11, the leaders arrived, at which point we trekked through the unyielding blizzard to Brent Cross shopping centre. Cursing my choice of canvas shoes that morning, I wondered if my toes still even existed, and whether I would ever feel my fingertips again.
Finally, we arrived at the centre, and sat in the blissful warmth of the charity reception room filling in the necessary(?) paperwork. Name. Age. Phone number. I amused myself by filling in the anonymous research form- Sex? Transgender. Education? PhD. Sexual orientation? I don't know. Nationality? Jamaican.
At 12:35, we had split up into our teams, and, sporting embarassingly bright yellow high-visibility jackets, were ready to set to work. At which point our fearless leader slid calmly back into the room to announce: "Unfortunately, because of the snow, the centre's closing in twenty-five minutes... sorry guys." I glanced out of the window at the blizzard and desperately wished for the ability to fly, simply to be able to get home.
My mood momentarily lifted by the hot volunteer (whose name I can neither spell nor pronounce) who asked for my number, I jumped aboard the 142 and prayed for the snow to vanish for twenty minutes so I could get home to a nice cup of tea. The bus journey home that normally takes me twenty minutes, took two hours and eighteen minutes, halfway through which my iPod and my phone decided to simultaneosly run out of battery. I think it may be safe to say I have never been so bored in my entire life.
Walking through my local shopping centre with a friend three days later, I heard the familiar sound of chinking coins on plastic, and turned to see a man dressed as a Christmas angel shaking a yellow bucket at me. I briefly considered my failed attempt at charity, and reluctantly dropped a few coins in.
Merry Christmas, Marie Curie. Merry bloody Christmas.
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