The Random Axe of Kindness

Apparently we've given up on attempting to be consistently decent to people and have instead resorted to naive and stop-gap charity. For example, the book encourages you to, "bake a cherry pie and leave it on someone's doorstep." As if I'd eat something hot and steamy that I found on the ground.

Then it suggests that you "spend half an hour in a hospital emergency room and do one random act of kindness." Remember, limit yourself to one (1). If some bleeding, whining wretch interrupts your act, tell them to shut their whining cake hole because you're in the middle of being kind.

"Buy a roll of brightly colored stickers and stick them on kids' shirts as you walk down the street." Yes, and make the stickers say funny things like 'Yer a cutie,' 'Be Mine,' or 'North American Man-Boy Love Association.' Write your phone number on them, too, because parents like to know whom to thank.

"Slip a $20 bill into the pocketbook of a needy friend (or stranger)." How do you know they're needy? They're strangers. Strangers who might get choked if they catch you rifling through their wallets.

"Open the phone book and select a name at random and send that person a greeting card." It's a fine line between a random act of kindness and a random act of stalking.

"Hold a random acts of kindness party where everyone tells the stories of kindnesses in their life." And when these bores have left, let your fun friends out of the closet and crank up the stereo, because we're partying all night long!

"Walk around with an Instamatic camera and take people's pictures and give them to them." If you're lucky, maybe you'll catch somebody committing a crime and they'll give you a reward for pointing it out.

"Make a dedication on your local radio station to all those people who smiled at strangers today." So the Skytrain perverts can feel, you know, all sunny inside.

"Take out an ad in your local weekly newspaper thanking a tree, a park, a stream, a sunset, for giving you comfort." Also, place a personal ad so you can meet other people just like you with way, way too much time on their hands.

As a final bonus, the book is littered with famous quotes, such as this winner from Famous Dead Guy Thomas Jefferson: "Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you and act accordingly." Thank you, slave owner.

So this Christmas, as armies call cease-fires so everybody can reload, perhaps we should think about our own glory-hugging, blue-moon, rancid acts of blindness. As for you aspiring Mahatma Gandhis, Mother Teresas, and Sally Strutherses out there who execute erratic acts of kindness and then beak off about how swell you've just been...hey, you're kind, all right. Kind of annoying.

-30-

Published: The Georgia Straight, December 21, 1995