The Breast Cancer shakedown
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm by NigelHey You!
Are you “aware” of breast cancer yet? I just wanted to make sure because I haven’t seen any of you wearing pink this month.
I’ll probably get the crap kicked out of me for this post…but I have to be honest here:
I’m sick of “breast cancer awareness month”.
Look…breast cancer SUCKS…pretty much any kind of cancer does. But I must be suffering from some kind of “breast cancer awareness” fatigue because if I never hear about breast cancer again I’d be fine with that.
Unless of course a loved one or friend gets breast cancer.
So of course I feel conflicted…and just a little bit like a jerk because I never want to see the color pink again and I don’t want to hear anything more about breast cancer.
I can’t walk into my grocery store for the rest of the month without feeling like a piece of crap because “no, I don’t want to donate a dollar for breast cancer awareness”. I have been asked to donate that dollar all month long…and the last time I softly said “no thank you” the clerk and the lady behind me gave me that “what a selfish asshole” look.
Of course they don’t know that I sponsored someone on their breast cancer walk. Or that I played in and donated even more money in a charity golf tournament “for the cure”. And that I paid for and played in a poker tourney where the proceeds went to the Susan G. Komen foundation. My donations to “breast cancer awareness” this month exceed my church donations plus a few of my utility bills combined.
But I suck because I just don’t feel like adding that dollar in at the grocery store, right?
Turns out I am not the only one who’s had enough of this either:
Since when did it become OK for flight attendants to pass the hat for a cause? I’m all in favor of breast-cancer research and fund-raising, but on airplanes? Every leg of every Delta flight? On an early-morning Delta flight, one flight attendant told us she’d let us sleep as long as we donated enough money (chuckling), but then semi-strong-armed us (‘We can do better than $315, folks!”) when the first passing of the hat didn’t result in enough money for her liking.
Must we inflict this fashion disaster on NFL fans?
The NFL has had their players, officials, cheerleaders and coaches all wearing pink…ALL MONTH LONG. Please…stop. If we weren’t all “aware” of breast cancer a month ago, we sure as hell are aware of it now.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I have a friend who is in remission from late stage breast cancer, and she got sick of it 4 years ago.
I think Americans like boobies, which is fine, but we would do well to care as much about women’s hearts. Heart disease in women is often under-diagnosed, or wrongly diagnosed as anxiety and then it’s too late.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Good point, Michele…
Something else came to me in the shower (I was trying to scrub off the guilt from writing this post)…Jerry Lewis raised a heck of a lot of money for muscular dystrophy.
What he didn’t do was beat us over the head with it for a month. 1 weekend, 1 telethon, gobs of money and awareness raised. I was “aware” of muscular dystrophy was by the time I was 8 and had even phoned in my first $5 pledge at that age.
And what about colon and prostrate cancers? Do we need similar months for those cancers? Aren’t they just as deadly and deserving of research money?
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
It could be that women are major retail consumers, and with breast cancer awareness month, companies can make a lot of pink stuff, women can buy it, and everyone can feel good and do something for a worthy cause.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:49 pm
My response to all the Pink Shakedown Crews is, “Please point me to the Testicular Cancer Awareness Donation Cougher.” Testicular Cancer has no special ribbon, nor does it receive even a day’s worth of concern or “awareness”. Yet, it’s 3-times more deadly in men than Breast Cancer is in women.
Call me an Asshole, but, i’m just sayin’…
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Little know fact, the drummer from KISS, (Peter Chris?) did have/has breast cancer.
OsamaHusseinIslamObama 2012′
(the terrorist-Uighur-ACORN-media choice)
-It’s never too early to campaign-
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Greetings:
This collecting for charities business annoys me also. My prime aggravator is my local Safeway store. They have apparently conjoined with any number of charities. When I was asked if I wanted to make a contribution, I replied, “If I wanted to contribute to a charity, do you think I would go to a grocery store to do it?” which was probably a little rough on the checkout clerk.
I think that, customer-service-wise, it’s an abuse of my custom. The store is basically imposing its agenda on me, and, to whatever minimal degree, retarding my progress. I spent may working days in the printing industry and did not and would not have allowed any of my employees to solicit my customers for any third parties.
My guess is that this trend is some kind of marketing department groupthink project. I imagine that they all went, “Oh, this will help the community and endear us to our customers and move our profit margins upwards and onwards.”
And not one of them had the intelligence or nerve to say, “Now, let’s just hold on here for a gosh-darned minute.”
This probably arose from the same cabal that thought up the idea of asking me, every time I check out, “Do you need help out with your groceries?” To which I reply either, “Do I look like I need help out with my groceries?” or, “No, I’m in better shape than I look.”
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Testicular cancer kills young men, and I love them more than boobies.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
I thought this was GLBT Month. Damn you, hot pink! Damn, you!
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:02 pm
I loathe that bright acid pink, and I’m sick of Breast Cancer Month. The calendar is not big enough to accommodate all the diseases that flesh is heir to. Plus Black History Month, Women’s History Month, etc ad nausea.
Personally, the only one I endorse is National Pickle Week.
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:18 am
One of my favorite mail order westernwear stores has a “tough enough to wear pink section. But it’s off to the side of the website where it doesn’t bother anyone. I always look, though because my wife convinced me that a pink shirt goes well with my skin, or is it eye? color. Anyhow, now that I never wear dress shirts anymore I don’t know why I keep looking. Oh well, the main thing is, the month is almost over and they’ll be bullying us about something else.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:14 am
For me, I am sick of the month long “Hispanic Heritage Month” by the NFL. They even had the referees and announcers doing spanish.
I am all in favor of embracing culture, but would the leftists be ok if we started a “Southern RedNeck Heritage Month”?
Celebrating all things southern, white, and jerry-rigged.
But, hey, not all rednecks live in the south. http://snappedshot.com/turbo/686-Man-Admits-Drunk-Driving-a-Recliner.html
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Susan G. Komen had to be reminded that Jewish women get breast cancer too.
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2009/10/susan-g-komen-reverses-decision-will-allow-israeli-doctors-at-egyptian-conference/
Good to see that anti-Semitism is alive and well, even in charity circles.