of aloe and fundraising

last Saturday I went to the cinco de mayo celebration downtown. It was fun- margaritas at noon, yummy tamales, salsa, and giant hats. All the ingredients necessary for a good time.

There were also plenty of those fun park activities that I am no too fond of. Things like paying $5 to try and get some toy frog thing to hit something and win a $2 shitty toy, or darts and stuff….just not my cup of tea. The rides can be fun though.

Anyway, as we were browsing and checking out all the fun stuff, I saw something I have been seeking out for while some time, a possession necessary in every household, and overall a most wonderful item – an Aloe Plant. Aloe Vera plants are great! You can use it to treat cuts, burns, skin allergies, to smooth out skin, and even to preserve food. You nourish the plant, and it nourishes you. Anyway, so there it is! A perfect little aloe vera plant that I can already picture living happily in my room. I walk up to the lady that is the only obstacle between the plant and me and ask her how much it is. She tells me with a huge smile on her face, that the plant is part of the fund raiser and tells me that to win it I must pay to have a chance to draw a “lucky” popsicle stick from this sand filled flower box. It was something like 5 tried for $1 and 50 for $10.

I excuse myself and tell her that I am not interested in the game, but would love to buy the plant from her right now. She stubborn wench continues to insist, with that ever plastered grin on her face, that I really should participate in the fundraiser, and that picking out the popsicles is the only way I can get a chance to have the plant.
While we are talking, I start pulling out the popsicle sticks, and having pulled 10 or so realize that there may not be a “lucky” one in there, and that there is no way she will convince me to partake in this bogus activity.

No matter what I offered ($20- clearly over value) she would not budge and started getting angry, which, I thought was hilarious. I just don’t get it. Assuming there was in fact a lucky stuck in that pot, I could have definitely gotten to it for $10 (there were no more than 50 in there), and she could have clearly made much more money from my purchase, than she would from me playing the stupid game. But no, it was the “fun-factor principle” or something.

I told her that if this is a fun raiser, and she is trying to raise funds, selling me an overpriced plant is the best way to do it…after 10 minutes I talked them into selling it to me for $20 and agreed to come back later….i never did though, and got a perfectly good aloe plant from a nearby nursery fun by a very nice drunk man, who sold the plant for $2.50 and it came with a free snail...

Screw die-hard fundraisers.