No I Will Not Give You My Money: Street Promoters, and Why I Can’t Handle Human Interaction
I have these pills that I take. They have a long 18-letter name that I can only compare to that of a street name in Poland: long, funny looking, and utterly unpronouncable. These pills are anti-anxiety pills. I take them sparingly, at times when I am particularly overwhelmed, like when I’m cramming for a huge final or when people tell me that Daniel Radcliffe is, in fact, not gay. (I will believe this when he is staring deep into my eyes over a meal of shepherd’s pie and homemade Butterbeer, longing for the days when we will watch our children, Harry and Ron, pretend to ride broomsticks in the backyard of our English cottage.)
But there is one time in particular, living in New York, that I become so overwhelmed I feel as though I am going to stop in my tracks, curl up in the fetal position, and cry on the disgusting streets of Manhattan, and that time is when I spot a street promoter standing right in my path on the sidewalk. For those of you fortunate enough to have never come in contact with these people, first of all, you are lucky bastards, and second, a brief description: they are the people that stand on the sidewalk, coercing passersby to talk to them and donate money to the cause they work for, such as saving children, saving trees, saving water, saving free speech, saving fill-in-the-blank. Often times they are in their mid-twenties, clad in Birkenstocks and canvas messenger bags, and will try to coax you their way with a high-five and a compliment on your teeth (that one made me particularly uncomfortable).
Now, most people can handle the encounter of a street promoter just fine. They keep walking briskly past, sometimes muttering an embarrassed ‘sorry’ or ‘no thank you’ and the dreadlock-sporting, Fiona Apple-listening kind soul just moves on to getting a hold of the next person coming their way. I, however, cannot navigate the situation as gracefully. As I step onto the same block as the promoter my palms start to sweat uncontrollably and I can feel a slight twitch in my left eye. My breathing becomes increasingly rapid and my heart begins to have worrisome palpitations. I shorten my stride and my eyes strain to avoid eye contact as I hurry through the options I now have to attempt to avoid the promoter:
1) Important phone call At this very moment I happen to get an important phone call. I pull my phone out of my purse as though I felt the vibrate ringtone, glance at the caller ID to see who is calling me, and answer quickly. It is important that I appear very engaged in this one-sided phone call. It is too much to be receiving the news that someone has died, but just enough to be getting a call from your friend saying she was just diagnosed with an STD.
2) Don’t speak English Desolee, je ne parle pas Anglaise!
3) In a hurry Though I usually run into promoters when I am out for a casual stroll and in no hurry to get anywhere any time soon, pretending that I am rushing to get somewhere is a surefire way to get past them. Even better, I don’t even have to stop and say a coherent sentence. All this one requires is a flustered “SORRY, GOING, WORK, BUSY, CAN’T, TRAIN” and some frantic, overzealous hand motions.
4) Deaf Insensitive? Of course. Effective? Damn right.
5) Already a donor Based on how many times I’ve used this one, I’ve apparently donated hundreds of dollars to Children International, Green Peace, Peta, ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, Planned Parenthood, ASPCA, Broadway Impact, NAACP, Unicef, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Comic Relief (yeah, I thought they didn’t exist anymore, too).
6) On my way to a date with Daniel Radcliffe Works with the female promoters, causes the gay ones to talk to me even more.
Crossing paths with these people is one of the most justified reasons to take a calming anti-anxiety pill. However, since these pills cause me to become increasingly comatose soon after taking them, swallowing one on the busy streets of the city isn’t exactly an option. Thus, I am forced to resort to the above scenarios to save myself from the clammy hands and rapid, cracked-out speech that comes with the 14th street encounters with the young charity workers with degrees from Gallatin. (OHHH snap.)
