The Children of the Corn Invade 9th and Irving

One of the most obvious examples of Why There Is A God is the creation of the Do Not Call List, helping to put an end to countless calls at dinnertime offering things you don’t need or want. At last, there is a way to stop the madness.
One of the most obvious examples of Why We Need To Keep Praying is the invasion of City streets by armies of the Children of the Corn (as they have been named by a friend of the N Judah Chronicles).
All allegedly represent Good Causes, and all hassle you over and over and over again. One cannot call up a phone number and be placed on the “Don’t Bug Me While I’m Waiting for the N Judah” list, or the “Please, Will You Just Leave Me Alone” list. No matter how polite you are, they just don’t leave you alone.
Today, I was walking to the N-Judah stop at 9th and Irving, and didn’t see until it was too late that once again, we’d been invaded, this time with a pack of Greenpeace-ish folks. They are getting smarter, too, just like successive models of Cylons, or whatever. You can see in this picture how they staked out EVERY SINGLE CORNER, so there was no escape from the sales pitch.

Now, I’m not a mean person, and I usually give out a polite “no thank you” when approached by these salespeople for La Revolucion. That said, if one of these clowns attempts to use any sort of engaging sales chatter, they’ve met their match, as I once had a similar job ages ago. I know the tricks, I know they work on “quota,” and I know most of my money goes back into keeping up the fundraising, so they can raise more money, to pay for more fundraising. Thus, my patience is very thin,
I walked to the bus stop and the chatty hipster guy was trying his best to use an assortment of liberal guilt, praise, and bad humor, to get me to hear more about why I needed to part with my money and give it to Greenpeace. I did the usual polite “thanks but not today” and went to the bus shelter. Looking up at the NextBus display I went through the rigamarole about when the “N” is closed at night, then saw the time – and instantly realized I Was Trapped.
Next Trains. 8 Minutes and 20 Minutes.
Which meant that I had to deal with this Chatty Charlie for a whole 8 minutes. Maybe more if some lout double parked on Judah. I tried polite humor to blow him off, but nothing worked. I wondered about using the “I can’t sign as I’m a twice convicted felon” blow off, but he wasn’t getting signatures for some insane ballot measure, so that wouldn’t work.
Finally, after Chatty Charlie would not leave me alone, I finally said “Look, I know all the techniques, your Jedi tricks won’t work on me, boy. Now please, let me read my OfficeDepot catalog in peace.” This was accompanied with that look that says “and this is the last time Im’ gonna be nice.”
Chatty Charlie left, and mumbled something rude about how I wasn’t a friend to the Earth or a hero or something. I instantly buried my nose into the now fascinating OfficeDepot catalog I had planned on tossing in the garbage, and waited for the N.
Chatty Charlie tried his rap, as did his brethren on the other corners, and it wasn’t working. News flash – 9th and Irving in the mid-morning sucks for this kind of stuff, guys. Don’t they teach you anything at Corn Children School?
I was never so happy to get on the N as I was at that moment. Well, maybe not. But it was great to get on board…just as the rain started. Fortunately, I didn’t have “quota” to make today! Hasta La Vista, suckers!