I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas - Lewis Black [18]
And there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop them. I have tried. Oh, God, how I’ve tried. But no one cares. The organizations think it’s a good idea. It’s not. They are just trying to make me feel guilty all year round. (By the way, Mr. Black, that keychain you just threw away was made especially for you by the starving kids and their starving parents.) I don’t need their help. I can muster up guilt all on my own, thank you very much. I am a Jew, as anybody who’s been paying attention here will recall. When it comes to that sort of thing, we are professionals.
I also feel a bit guilty while I write those checks as I try to figure out which organization do I give more to. I always start with the United Negro College Fund, because of former vice president Dan Quayle’s immortal screw-up.
Do you remember that? No, I didn’t think so. Well, let me remind you.
Back when he was vice president, Quayle addressed the United Negro College Fund, whose slogan is “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Well, this genius said, when he was standing in front of the group and speaking to its members: “You take the UNCF model, that what a waste it is to lose one’s mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful . . .” And could anyone be a better example of that than you, Mr. Vice President?
(I quote him to remind you, and myself, that anyone can be vice president. Anyone. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.)
From there on, it’s organizations of every size, shape, and description. Those who help the homeless, food banks, emergency relief funds, all sorts of groups of doctors, those helping minorities who are getting screwed, nonprofit theaters, legal aid and lawyers working for hopeless causes that shouldn’t be hopeless causes, educational outfits, kids’ groups, environmentalists, anyone who wants to make a more peaceful world, anyone fighting idiots in power, and anyone trying to find a cure for diseases. Especially those diseases that have either stricken friends of mine or taken their lives. Then it’s diseases that I’m afraid I am going to get. And I am afraid I am going to get all of them, even juvenile diseases I am far too old to possibly get. And I am afraid I am going to die from all of them.
I do not tell you this to show what a good boy I am. Not in the least. Because I know I’m not. I don’t even get carpal tunnel syndrome while doing this. I never do enough. Never. No one can. And yet, oddly enough, on every Christmas morning, this makes me happy.
It’s the best present I give myself every year.1 (In fact, it’s the only time I give the absolutely perfect present to the absolutely right person.)
CHRISTMAS DAY, 11 : 07 A.M.
Dashing Through the Shower, Losing My Mind Along the Way
After I’ve written the last check, I wonder why there isn’t some major nonprofit scientific research organization experimenting with creating replaceable human organs, so one doesn’t have to wait around for some horrifying traffic accident in order to receive a new liver or lung or heart. We don’t need to be able to download phone applications, we need to find a way to download organs. And quickly, as I don’t know how much longer mine are going to be in running order. Fucking mortality makes you think about this shit. I’d replace all of my organs now if I could. Actually, if at all possible, I’d replace them every three years, because you can’t really do all that much damage in only three years and then you’d be starting fresh again. Nothing I’d like better than to stave off my inevitable demise.
It then occurs to me that if I had done all of these donations with a credit card, I could have accrued points with my giving.