Grey's Journal:
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In London, you learn to dodge people. No matter which side of the street you think is better to walk on, there are people who disagree with you. There is a general consensus to walk on the left, but general is not good enough. The dissenters cause turbulence for the rest of us. However, this is a minor annoyance. I have learned to flow in the crowds like water in a rocky stream. But, there are obstacles that actively jump in your way. These major annoyances are crazy religious missionaries, and fund raisers. For example, in my first few days in London, I was stopped by three large, muscular men. In mafia style, the smallest of the three approached me. "My friends and I," he gestured to the oxen flanking him, to ensure I knew the identically dressed men were together. "We need to talk to you about God." I politely declined, and got away as quickly as I could without showing fear by breaking into a run. While the crazy people are quite diverse in their attention getting methods (I had the misfortune of being trapped on the circle line with a man quoting scripture at every stop) the fund raisers have a usual routine. It doesn't matter what organization they are from. It's always the same message, in mad libs format:
I've gotten pretty good at avoiding these canvassers. Not looking them in the eyes is a good start. But, it turns out, that is not enough. I need more protection. I was stopped today. Several things conspired against me: 1) I was in Leicester Square during the UK premier of Legally Blonde 2 (Stop snickering. I was not there because of the premier). The large amount of activity and obscene amounts of pink distracted me. Thus, I was not aware of the identically dressed individuals with clipboards nearby, scanning the crowd like a pack of lions looking for a weak gazelle. 2) I had stopped walking to take off my backpack and jot down a funny thought I had about the street artists for a future journal. I had broken from the safety of the herd. I was a motionless target. 3) The girl who snuck up on me was very cute. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which of these factors was the dominant one to conspire against me... as I go on to describe exactly how cute she was. She was my type, and by that I mean she would not be most males' type. A dorky, slightly awkward, glasses wearing, British-accented brunette. I was helpless. Canvassers seem to be heavily slanted toward the young and female and they pick male targets. I wonder why. First, she tried to be friendly and disarming by failing to pronounce the word on my shirt (Linux: LIN-uks). After I opened my mouth to speak, she asked, "I guess you're not from around here?" I could have ended the conversation right there by agreeing with her, but I stupidly forgot this wasn't a friendly chat. So, I corrected her and said I was new to town. Instead of asking me on a date to show me around, she started in on her preplanned speech. As she spoke, I remembered a lesson my oh-so-innocent girlfriend taught me. One morning, as I was getting ready to go to class, she started kissing me and being `friendly'. A few minutes later we stopped and she handed me my wallet. "Thanks." I figured she had picked it up off the dresser for me. With great patience, she corrected my assumption. "I got it from your back pocket. (pause). The pocket of the pants you're wearing." "...", I replied. Lesson learned. The canvas girl, though without employing the same means as my girlfriend, was trying to achieve the same end. "Oh," she suddenly stopped, "I guess you wouldn't have a bank account here yet." Realizing she was after the big money, and remembering Sarah's lesson, I confirmed this misbelief of hers and our conversation ended quickly. Again, no date was asked for, and she returned to scanning the herd for a wounded gazelle. As a result of this encounter, I have decided it necessary to arm myself with a new anti-canvasser technique. My first idea was to say, "I don't speak English" in a foreign language. I would get my French flatmate to teach me this phrase in his language. I thought I was brilliant: this would be an impenetrable shield. Then I remembered I'm in Europe. Everyone here speaks another language. They even have a little joke that goes like this: "What do you call some one who speaks three languages?" "Trilingual." "What do you call some one who speaks two languages?" "Bilingual." "What do you call some one who speaks one language?" "An American." So, my shield would end up impaling me. Attractive fund raiser strikes, I block with a quick "Je ne parle pas anglais", but she retaliates by speaking in French. Now what do I do? Say I don't speak French... in English? Pretty lame. In the end, I have decided to fall back on Esperanto. It's an artificial language. No one speaks it. I should be safe with a "Mi ne parolas anglan." But, defeating the canvassers still leaves me with one more group to avoid: the homeless. I've seen the homeless before in many cities. I usually gave them change and wished them luck. Living in a city adds an unanticipated dimension to this interaction: familiarity. Before I moved here, I'd never seen the same homeless person twice. They were just one of many different faces. Give change or don't. It didn't matter, I'd never see them again. But now, I see the same homeless crew everyday on my way to and from the underground. Now I don't know what to do. At first, I gave the woman who sits at the bottom of the stairs (I'll call her Emma) change. But if I gave her money, I'd have to give the homeless guy at the top of the stairs (Knightly) money too. If I gave Emma money, but not Knightly, I'd be a sexist. So, I'd give them both money, but the guy down the street (Darcy) needs money too. And he's black. If I gave money to Emma and Knightly, but not Darcy, I'm not a sexist anymore, I'm a racist. In the end, nobody gets money, and in return I get a lot of guilt. Leave a comment, send an email or join my
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Copyright © 2003 Wellington Grey  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
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