beware the evil

So today I was at work, sharing with one of my coworkers about the boobiethon I mentioned in an earlier post. I was just telling her about these people who wanted to raise money for the Komen foundation, and that was about as far as I'd gotten, when one of my other coworkers made me very angry.

She said that people shouldn't steal money. I asked her if she had heard of this group, and she hadn't, which obviously meant it was evil. She yelled at me and said that nobody that has a web page can be trusted. I asked her if it would be different if they had talked about it on the Today Show, to which she replied -- yes, but only if they didn't have a web page. Apparently nothing on the web can be trusted.

I tried to not let it bother me. I tried to accept her as a 65+ old lady who hadn't quite left the last century. I tried really hard. Really, I did.

And then she said, "You just can't trust anybody."

The lady with whom I was originally talking said, but don't you remember when I hosted a poker run for the American Cancer Society? How is that different?

Because you are trustworthy, she said.

But she wouldn't agree that there are other trustworthy people in the world. And those who were trustworthy would never ask for money over the internet. She shook her finger in my face.
And then she bad-mouthed all public agencies that raise money for people, including the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the American Cancer Society... and those were just a few of the ones she called by name. We were shocked, jaw-dropping shock. The other lady tried to argue with her, but I just made smartass comments, like how our web-based scheduling must be evil, too. How every retail store had a webpage, so they must be evil... and both CNN and FOX news have webpages, too. How everything that touched the web must be evil.

Hell, even Human Rights Watch has a webpage. I told her the Better Business Bureau had a webpage, then asked her if having a webpage meant that they only supported evil companies. See? Even reliving this incident is making me angry. Imagine being there in real life.

I didn't even mention that most churches have webpages, too. I thought she might not appreciate me really pointing out her errors via something she understood. And that's the thing... trying to keep her from getting upset and having a stroke.

I found something else to do to keep my smartass comments to myself. But it steamed me.

So for the little old lady who has happened upon this webpage: Honest, I'm not dishonest. I'm not asking you for money. I'm not even asking you to take pictures of your bare breasts and email them to the boobiethon. I'm not asking you to run in a Komen Race for the Cure marathon. I'm not asking you to save yogurt lids or box tops. I'm not even asking you to care.

I'm just saying that this was a neat idea. And if you're of the mind to help people, that rocks.

Just don't say that the *entire* internet is untrustworthy. That's just stupid.