Would You Like To Donate The Change To D.A.'s Crack Habit?

Watching some DVD movie set in the 1950’s the other day, I was struck by a bit of dialog where one of the characters tells the others his new Buick cost $2,700, which means new automobiles cost roughly ten times what they did back then. That led me to remember that as a child I had a weekly allowance once of thirty-five cents. A kid could actually buy stuff with thirty-five cents then. Not much, maybe, but some things. Candy bars were a nickel and there was a store within walking distance that had a whole display case of penny candies and another store that had racks of ten cent toys. No, the proprietors of these stores were not named Ike Godsey or Sam Drucker.

And, no, this isn’t about how things are so much more expensive these days, either. According to my father, who lived through the Great Depression, a young man possessed of thirty-five cents even in 1957 had the world at his feet. Why, back in ’32 he could have booked first class passage on the Queen Elizabeth to sail him to his villa on the French Rivera and still had a quarter left over. But unlike my father, who never really grasped the notion of inflation, I understand the difference between the real and nominal value of money, so I have refrained so far from boring my own kids with stories of what vast wealth that loose change found under the sofa cushions once represented. They seem to understand inflation, too, or at least the real value of a quarter these days. They never bother picking up the change lying about the house, anyway.

Not only are we all, on average, much richer than we were fifty years ago, some goods like food and clothing are actually cheaper in real terms than they were back then. Both rising real incomes and the lower cost of some necessities has resulted in our spending a significantly smaller percentage of the former on the latter.

I’m talking middle-class here, but even the poor in America have it better in many respects than the poor of previous generations. In some respects they even have it better than previous generations of the middle-class. You want to pay 1950’s prices for health care? Are you willing, also, to get 1950’s results?

Actually, what all this is leading up to is a curmudgeonly complaint. I wanted to set the stage first, though, to make it clear that I do understand that the marginal value to me of anything less than a dollar, let's say fifty-eight cents, is next to zero. Even so, it simply drives me crazy when the cashier at the grocery store check-out line these days finishes scanning and bagging my groceries and then asks me “Would you like to donate the change to [insert charity here]?”

Where did this extremely bad idea, that seems to be sweeping the retail nation, come from? I mean, really, who’s responsible for this affront?

Okay, before I go on with this rant, it’s time for the second disclaimer. Look, I have nothing against the Heart Association or the American Cancer Society or Katrina Relief or whatever charity-of-the-month these stores are collecting for. They’re all worthwhile causes and people should support them and I personally make contributions to some of them on a regular basis. Really I do. I’m a much nicer guy than you’d guess from reading this blog. Really.

But fergawdsakes, not like that! In the first place, I went to the grocery store to buy bread and milk. Okay, so maybe beer and cigarettes, what’s the difference? The point is, that’s the deal – they sell groceries, I want to buy groceries, they’ve got a big sign out front that tells me I can buy my groceries there, so that’s where I go to buy them. Sometimes those signs tell me I can buy stamps and prescription drugs and maybe even do my banking inside, too, but there isn’t a word of warning anywhere about dunning me for a donation. And they don’t mention breast cancer in those inserts with all the coupons in the Sunday paper, either. So, basically, it’s an ambush.

What they do is they wait until the very last minute when you’re standing there in line, trying to find your “courtesy card” for the “discounts” and punching in your debit card pin number on the point-of-sale pad and there’s a line of fellow customers in back of you, all of them anxious to pay for their stuff and get the hell out of there too, and the woman right in back of you is already eying you suspiciously because she thinks those three apples you didn’t bother putting in a plastic bag should therefore count as three items toward your fifteen item express lane limit and your bill comes to $37.42 and then and only then does the cashier look you square in the eyes and ask “Would you like to donate the fifty-eight cents to AIDS research?”

And, of course, you can’t say no. After all, you just finished buying a six-pack, potato chips and a copy of People, so if you begrudge those noble AIDS researchers a measly fifty-eight cents you’re going to look like the world’s cheapest cheapskate and the woman standing behind you, who strikes you as just a wee bit butch anyway, will be convinced you’re a homophobe to boot!

So naturally you say sure, take the damned fifty-eight cents “but can I get a receipt for tax purposes?” No, you don’t say any such thing. You just give up the change and as you’re leaving the store maybe you wonder why you don’t feel the same mild and fleeting sense of having done a good deed, however small, you feel when you give a panhandler the same amount even though you know he’s just going to spend it on cheap wine or drugs.

The reason you don’t get even that tiny frisson of smug self-satisfaction you get from giving to the derelict is because, deep down inside, you know you’ve just been had. Regardless of the amount at stake, unless an act of charity is genuinely voluntary it’s just another strong-arm shakedown, albeit of the psychological variety in this case.

By the way, I certainly don’t blame the poor cashier. She’s got a boring, low paying job, she’s on her feet all day and she’s only doing what her boss told her to do. Sure, I’d like to fight back, maybe say to her “No, I don’t think so, but what other charitable options do I have? After all, you folks gave me a choice of four different brands of peanut butter, not to mention smooth or chunky. How about passing along my fifty-eight cents to the Leukemia people, instead?” but, of course, I don't.

It’s simply none of Safeway’s or Kroger’s business whether you or I want to contribute to charity or not just as it’s none of your employer’s business when the office jerk makes the annual rounds for the United Way and that stupid placard by the front entrance tracks the amount pledged and the percentage of employees pledging. Okay, so maybe that’s just part of the deal of being an employee, even though it shouldn’t be. You’re not likely to change jobs as a result. But maybe you should consider changing supermarkets.

Okay, maybe not even that. It would probably cost you more than fifty-eight cents, gas prices being what they are, to drive to another store and back, and besides you know where everything is at your favorite store and it has better meat or produce or whatever. And, sure, it’s a trivial matter economically and maybe you aren’t annoyed by it, anyway. Maybe you think it’s a great idea. Maybe the stores have research showing that more customers like it than not and their sales actually go up as a result. Who knows?

Maybe this is just the wave of the future. Why bother making your own charitable decisions when the good folks at Whole Foods or Piggly Wiggly can make them for you? After all, didn’t you just spend five minutes already fretting over whether to go with the Pilsner Urquell or the Anchor Steam? Life is too short and, besides, the game starts in fifteen minutes. Keep the change. Gotta run.