Whether it's 10am, 12pm or a shade before happy hour, without fail, Greenpeace has a three-person presence five steps outside the glass doors of my office building.
These young idealists come in a melange of brochure-friendly makeup-spare faces bedecked in REI-inspired ensembles of a fitted company t-shirt, sturdy khaki short shorts, strappy athletic sandals and messenger bags emblazoned with whichever anarchist happened to be the most in-vogue at UVM when they graduated; they deliver their save-the-planet pitch with a righteous gusto that is alarmingly in-your-face but so undeniably sincere that if I weren't always in such a pinch to get to Cosi during the lunch rush or home by 6:30 to promptly walk the muffinloop, I'd probably allow them to suck me into at least listening to that familiar 10-word first question: "Excuse me, can I have 5 minutes of your time?"
These young idealists come in a melange of brochure-friendly makeup-spare faces bedecked in REI-inspired ensembles of a fitted company t-shirt, sturdy khaki short shorts, strappy athletic sandals and messenger bags emblazoned with whichever anarchist happened to be the most in-vogue at UVM when they graduated; they deliver their save-the-planet pitch with a righteous gusto that is alarmingly in-your-face but so undeniably sincere that if I weren't always in such a pinch to get to Cosi during the lunch rush or home by 6:30 to promptly walk the muffinloop, I'd probably allow them to suck me into at least listening to that familiar 10-word first question: "Excuse me, can I have 5 minutes of your time?"
Yesterday, at 5:45, I finally had my chance.
Having wrapped up at work a bit early and inspired by the sunshine to take my new mocha-hued Charles David Rosa peep toes for their inaugural strut up to Larry's for a small froyo with rainbow jimmies, I exited one set of heavy glass doors, then another, turned a hard left and headed out in my favorite DvF wrap dress toward the Greenpeace gauntlet awaiting me on the stretch of sidewalk just before the ConnAve/M St. intersection.
There they were, the three of them, all young women somewhere between the ages of 22 and 24, clipboards gripped in unmoisturized hands and bandannas tightly wrapped around half-ponytails, reeking - I imagined - of patchouli, organic fruit leathers and Michael Moore.
"Have at me, ladies," I thought to myself as I passed The Vitamin Shoppe, then Radio Shack, then Sun Trust Bank then...then nothing.
"Wait a minute," I said, whipping around to see how I could have made it from point A to point B without an accost. There they still were, standing in their same spots, not looking at me - at that time, the only person in their proximity - one picking at her cuticles, one smiling so hard I was afraid she might get a jaw cramp and the other, quite appropriately, eating a SoyJoy granola bar.
Huh?
Then it dawned on me, here I am always complaining and demeaning and unnecessarily mocking the clipboarders for their I'll-talk-to-anyone-about-my-cause-because-it's-just-that-important-to-me approach - because, I mean, come on, who really wants to talk to anyone? - but throughout my stereotyping and throughout all my bitching, not once, never on a single solitary occasion since they invaded my ConnAve/M St. perch two years ago, have any of them ever made an attempt to speak with me. And more often than not, like yesterday, they aren't even engaged when they ignore me.
"You're lucky, you know, that they don't harrass you," a fatherly gentleman in his early 50s said with a half-laugh, as he sided up next to me to wait for the light to change, "they always get me."
"Yeah...I suppose I'm not their target audience," I replied, doing my best to hold back my genuine I-thought-everyone-liked-me disappointment.
(sizing me up from my sideswept bangs to my default deadpan facial expression to my rack-showcasing dress to my black pedicured toes) "I'd say not," he said, this time with a full-bodied laugh.
Still slightly in a huff that anyone, especially an organization that expressly advocates on their website and in their literature the notion of making a difference through involving "as many ordinary people as possible," would deem me unworthy of a simple chat-up, I turned on the tip of my stiletto, put on Peaches at full-volume and turned my thoughts to "vanilla or swirl?".
