Don't Do Drugs, Kids.

After I left work today, I headed to the grocery store. I know...exciting, right?  Outside of the grocery store are the usual assortment of people. The "security" guard (who is about two hundred pounds too heavy to secure anything), the "Green Mountain Energy" people (who want you to sign up for some sort of hippie electrical service) the homeless and the bored.

Off to the side of them were some small children in white shirts and black ties. They each had some cookies in their hands and were trying to sell them in some sort of fundraiser/raffle/scam/marketing ploy. They were hitting people up going into the store.

Um...kids, the best way to get people is when they go out of the store. If they are carrying around a box of cookies that the store sells, the store is going to charge them again for said cookies. But I digress...

After I shopped, this sweet little young black boy (who couldn't have been more than four or five years old) comes up to me and says "Excuse me, mister. I'm trying to lead a drug-free, gang-free life. Will you buy some cookies to help me maintain a drug-free, gang-free life?"

I looked at him and said "Is there an adult with you?"

The boy pointed to some guy also in a white shirt and black tie. I went up to his guy and asked him what the kids were selling cookies for. He explained that a local church (a real local church, not some made up church in someone's garage) was raising money for their youth program. They try to get the kids young and keep them in afterschool activities and away from gangs. I thought they were legit, so I went back to the little boy.

I gave him the five dollars for the cookies and I told him to stay away from drugs, or he'd end up like the scary long-haired man selling "electricity" in the parking lot of a grocery store.

He gave me an odd look and handed me the cookies. I now have a box of Hershey's Kisses Mini Cookies in the cupboard. If anyone wants one, you are free to have one or two or the whole box. I'll never go near that shit.