Environmental Inactivism
As the years drag on and the state of the planet continues to spiral further downward, my frustration grows and my efforts double to prevent further degradation. Said efforts manifested in my membership of 350 St. Louis at school, a chapter of the group that strives to reduce carbon emissions in all parts of the world. Our projects have included Operation 10/10/10, in which activists around the world join and work on a project in order to improve the state of the earth. Our school group gathered for Operation Clean Stream in which we cleaned out a creek which we adopted.
Last week, before enjoying the blissful, extended Thanksgiving weekend, we decided at our meeting that amidst all the Black Friday hustle and bustle, we would try to hand out slips of paper which advocated texting a certain number to the Pepsi Refresh Project. In doing so, we obtain votes which will move us towards that top 2 ranking, in which Pepsi will fund us with $250,000 for our district to thrive entirely on solar energy. Currently, we stand at #6, and as votes will only count once a day in the month of November, it is crucial to get as many supporters as we can.
Being the environmentally conscious individual that I am, I volunteered to head to Kohl's, from which I returned not too long ago. Originally I thought I would just place the slips of paper on people's windshields, but the club president warned me that people may not pay as much attention to something as impersonal as that, and it may violate soliciting rules of the area. Thus, I ventured into the store.
I first tried this black lady browsing along the racks of juniors' coats.
"Excuse me," I started. She looked up, a frown beginning to crease the corners of her face. "I was wondering if you were willing to text this number in order to help get funding for solar panels for the Parkway School District-"
She cut me off before I could finish.
"Girl, my daughter goes to a different school district..." Her voice trailed off as she hastened from the scene.
Alright, I thought. Time for a different section of the store.
I headed to another area and approached a nice looking lady who was browsing in the Misses. I repeated my spiel, this time with much more success. The woman smiled and nodded, saying "sure" after she took the slip of paper.
A bit of confidence regained, I went on to the next person, more a boulder rather than a woman, wearing a sickeningly pink North Face. She was clutching a stack of clothes in her meaty arm.
"Excuse me," I repeated once again. "I was wondering if you could text this number to get funding for solar panels-"
"PFFT no! Are you kidding me?" she scoffed rather rudely, swinging her gargantuan hips and heading the opposite direction, disrupting both racks of clothes on either side of her.
"Alright, thanks."
Sigh. I absently wandered a little distance away, then decided to go the other direction, where she made eye contact with me and then spat, "And I will be informing the manager about you."
Back up. The manager? That was a bit too far. I stared at her, baffled. Did I break some sort of sacred code of Kohl's from my concern about the environment?
"Is this not allowed here?" I stammered.
"Disrupting the shoppers..." she also trailed off, waddling down the aisles towards the front of the store.
Unsure of what to do next, I called Mom and told her I had to leave but didn't explain, so she just handed me the keys and told me that she wanted to browse around for a bit. I didn't protest but left to wait in the car.
At this point, I contemplated the possibility of just sticking the paper on people's windshields, but thought better of it. While I texted fellow 350ers of my unfortunate encounter, I noticed an angry-looking man with a lanyard around his neck exit the store and start marching around the parking lot, glancing between the rows of cars and in the vehicles themselves.
Shit, I thought. Tough crowd.
He neared the middle of the parking lot, where I was seated in plain sight in the passenger's seat. While his back was turned, I clambered into the back row, where Callie was looking around to see what was going on. Looking up, I saw he was scanning my row, but I simply looked down at my phone and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. Eventually I dropped to the floor space between the first and second rows of Mom's van.
Queen of anticlimactic...ness (anticlimactivity?), I stayed in my cramped space until I figured he got too cold (he didn't have a coat) or sensible enough to return to the store, and then sat up in the back seat and waited for Mom to return.
Later, at Aldi, I didn't have the courage to ask someone of authority whether I was allowed to reattempt my failure at Kohl's. Oh well, karma's got something coming for that cow... hopefully in the form of sunburn (lol irony).
It's arguable that I was partially at fault; perhaps if I had approached the woman on a better day, or chosen better wording, or stated that it was for entry in a contest for free cheeseburgers, things would have gone more according to plan. The most unfortunate part of the entire experience is that those slips of paper still haven't been passed out and, though there's no telling whether we could have advanced towards the top 2, today certainly made us remain in the same spot as before.
Things will change when I get my Environmental Science degree.
Speaking of which, you can suck it, Greathouse. I would much rather be a "lazy, stupid Asian girl" than a bald, obese, psychologically twisted victim of a poor upbringing who works at a job he doesn't enjoy and half of an unloving marriage.
"I will be informing the manager about you."
And I'll be informing Jenny Craig about you, you freakish pink bathtub of a woman.
Last week, before enjoying the blissful, extended Thanksgiving weekend, we decided at our meeting that amidst all the Black Friday hustle and bustle, we would try to hand out slips of paper which advocated texting a certain number to the Pepsi Refresh Project. In doing so, we obtain votes which will move us towards that top 2 ranking, in which Pepsi will fund us with $250,000 for our district to thrive entirely on solar energy. Currently, we stand at #6, and as votes will only count once a day in the month of November, it is crucial to get as many supporters as we can.
Being the environmentally conscious individual that I am, I volunteered to head to Kohl's, from which I returned not too long ago. Originally I thought I would just place the slips of paper on people's windshields, but the club president warned me that people may not pay as much attention to something as impersonal as that, and it may violate soliciting rules of the area. Thus, I ventured into the store.
I first tried this black lady browsing along the racks of juniors' coats.
"Excuse me," I started. She looked up, a frown beginning to crease the corners of her face. "I was wondering if you were willing to text this number in order to help get funding for solar panels for the Parkway School District-"
She cut me off before I could finish.
"Girl, my daughter goes to a different school district..." Her voice trailed off as she hastened from the scene.
Alright, I thought. Time for a different section of the store.
I headed to another area and approached a nice looking lady who was browsing in the Misses. I repeated my spiel, this time with much more success. The woman smiled and nodded, saying "sure" after she took the slip of paper.
A bit of confidence regained, I went on to the next person, more a boulder rather than a woman, wearing a sickeningly pink North Face. She was clutching a stack of clothes in her meaty arm.
"Excuse me," I repeated once again. "I was wondering if you could text this number to get funding for solar panels-"
"PFFT no! Are you kidding me?" she scoffed rather rudely, swinging her gargantuan hips and heading the opposite direction, disrupting both racks of clothes on either side of her.
"Alright, thanks."
Sigh. I absently wandered a little distance away, then decided to go the other direction, where she made eye contact with me and then spat, "And I will be informing the manager about you."
Back up. The manager? That was a bit too far. I stared at her, baffled. Did I break some sort of sacred code of Kohl's from my concern about the environment?
"Is this not allowed here?" I stammered.
"Disrupting the shoppers..." she also trailed off, waddling down the aisles towards the front of the store.
Unsure of what to do next, I called Mom and told her I had to leave but didn't explain, so she just handed me the keys and told me that she wanted to browse around for a bit. I didn't protest but left to wait in the car.
At this point, I contemplated the possibility of just sticking the paper on people's windshields, but thought better of it. While I texted fellow 350ers of my unfortunate encounter, I noticed an angry-looking man with a lanyard around his neck exit the store and start marching around the parking lot, glancing between the rows of cars and in the vehicles themselves.
Shit, I thought. Tough crowd.
He neared the middle of the parking lot, where I was seated in plain sight in the passenger's seat. While his back was turned, I clambered into the back row, where Callie was looking around to see what was going on. Looking up, I saw he was scanning my row, but I simply looked down at my phone and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. Eventually I dropped to the floor space between the first and second rows of Mom's van.
Queen of anticlimactic...ness (anticlimactivity?), I stayed in my cramped space until I figured he got too cold (he didn't have a coat) or sensible enough to return to the store, and then sat up in the back seat and waited for Mom to return.
Later, at Aldi, I didn't have the courage to ask someone of authority whether I was allowed to reattempt my failure at Kohl's. Oh well, karma's got something coming for that cow... hopefully in the form of sunburn (lol irony).
It's arguable that I was partially at fault; perhaps if I had approached the woman on a better day, or chosen better wording, or stated that it was for entry in a contest for free cheeseburgers, things would have gone more according to plan. The most unfortunate part of the entire experience is that those slips of paper still haven't been passed out and, though there's no telling whether we could have advanced towards the top 2, today certainly made us remain in the same spot as before.
Things will change when I get my Environmental Science degree.
Speaking of which, you can suck it, Greathouse. I would much rather be a "lazy, stupid Asian girl" than a bald, obese, psychologically twisted victim of a poor upbringing who works at a job he doesn't enjoy and half of an unloving marriage.
"I will be informing the manager about you."
And I'll be informing Jenny Craig about you, you freakish pink bathtub of a woman.