Magic Gerbils, Crayons, and Cancer

A story from my youth: Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Abby. She was dirt poor. Her family was on welfare and food stamps. All of her clothes were handed down from her brother. To save money, haircuts were administered by her mother, Halloween was more of a mission than a holiday, and it wasn't unusual for Abby to go to school with a packet of dry ramen noodles for breakfast and lunch. Abby was in class one day, and her teacher was hung-over. The class was instructed to draw a picture with their crayons. As the class began, Abby remembered that her parents had bought an eighth of weed instead of colored pencils, markers and crayons under the justification that, "Between momma's mascara pencil, blue pens, and your imagination, you'll do just fine. Can you get me more milk for my Lucky Charms?"

Abby raised her hand to inform her teacher that she didn't own any crayons and couldn't complete the assignment, but it was too late. Ms. Haverdash had already put on her aviators and was fast asleep.

Tony was the son of a very wealthy Italian watch model. He had a box of sixty-five crayons, so he let Abby use the colors he didn't care for, such as brown, orange, pink, purple and gray. Jenny was blonde, and would grow up to be a trophy wife, which is irrelevant, but you can never start planning your careers too early, girls. Jenny had a standard box of sixteen crayons. Her black one had snapped in half, so she gave the nub end to Abby, who sharpened it in Tony's crayon sharpener, again irrelevant to the story, but girls, don't think you have to sharpen boys' crayons to make it in this world.

Then there was Mikey. Mikey was the only kid in class whose family was probably in worse shape than Abby's. Mikey's mom lived off of disability following a tragic porn filming accident on the set of Trannies, Panties, and Automatons, a science-fiction parody of the John Candy classic. While filming on location at a train station, Mikey's mom squirted on the third rail. Terrible things happened to Mikey's mom's lower half. In any event, Mikey only received the crayon's he had through an unspoken deal he made with the man who delivers bags of mashed potato mix to the school. We won't go into detail, but Mikey got fucked in the butt - metaphorically speaking - as in he made a poor trade for three measly little, used, old crayons that originated from an Applebee's.

If you really want to know, he traded home videos of his mom. There are you happy? Can't you leave poor Mikey alone?

Mikey went up to Abby and said, "Abby, you may sha-wuh awhl mah cway-awhns wif me-uh."

Oh yeah, Mikey has mouth cancer. Do you feel bad now? You should. His mom went into porn to pay for cancer treatments. You people disgust me.

Moving on: The class gerbil happened to be a magic wizard in disguise. Walter the Werbil (Wizard-gerbil) revealed his giant werbil form to the class. So inspired was he by the generosity of Mikey that he granted him any three wishes. Mikey, being a modest and humble boy of few desires, said, "I wish for my mouth cancer to be cured, and for everyone to be happy forever. Unfortunately, Walter the Werbil heard, "Aw, whiff four mammoth canisters of bean curd, and fluff anyone! Toe bleed Abby for rent."

Confused, but determined, Walter the Werbil proceeded to snort cans of tofu, give blow-jobs, and finish by biting poor Abby's toes until she gave up her milk money. The End.

***

The moral of the less demented version of this story is, that it is not the small donations made by those blessed with many things, but the (relatively speaking) large donations made by those who already have little, that makes a deed truly good. I may donate my pocket-change to the homeless and round up my Safeway bills for cancer research, but my deeds are no where near as admirable as those college graduates, who in light of having just acquired eighty-thousand dollars in debt from student loans, chose to fly off to war-torn Africa to build wells and huts for those in need. I'm just more vocal and need validation.

What I am trying to say is: I am not that great of a person. I don't even consider myself to be a good person. I am comparable to Tony in the story listed above. I do good works on a small scale relative to my potential. I want to shoot down the notion, before it arises, that the author thinks himself morally superior, and so finds it necessary to prescribe ethical guidelines. This is not the case. I have no idea what I'm doing.

For now, I want to catalogue the actions and habits that have worked for me in my quest to become a better human being, so that if there are people out there who wish to begin a period of self-improvement, they can know what a formerly terrible person did to begin the process of turning it around.

For those of us in our twenties and full of ideals, now is the time that we can make the greatest physical impacts on the world. Decades from now, when we are in our fifties, we will use the tools of influence and affluence to achieve our goals, but now is the time in which we must throw our bodies and minds into the fray to get what we truly want in life. Personally, I have invested my education in writing. Whereas this was not my passion, when I chose to major in English (a choice made out of sheer laziness) the ability to document thoughts and argue semantics were the tools given to me. I want people to believe in the goodness they are capable of, and it is the author's intention, and passion, to try to inspire this belief - by any means necessary - using the tools available.

To those of you who went and taught in Thailand, did environmental work abroad, participated in a program like Teach for America, or mentored an at-risk youth - you are good people, who have taken meaningful steps, and put forth great efforts into doing things that you saw as being right, good and beneficial for yourself and the world. So frequently have thousands of people said the words, "thank you for your service," to some scary, muscly military guy who has probably participated in killing people. For some reason, I have a sneaking suspicion that the people I just mentioned have probably been thanked far less upon their return.

Thanks guys. You have made a positive impact in the world.