Charity might begin at home, but worrying about charity begins at Waitrose. Those little green tokens they give you with your receipt — nice touch, I used to think. If the store won’t give me any of my money back by way of a loyalty card, at least they’ll give it to someone I can vote for, by dropping the token into one of three compartments in a big clear plastic box by the exit. Each compartment relates to a local charity. New line-up every month, new chance to feel good about yourself.
But no good deed goes unpunished, so it didn’t take long for doubts to creep in. There was the whole concept of Waitrose donating to charity, for a start. Given their prices, shouldn’t they be aiming a little higher than the local playground? If I had a pound for everyone who’s told me they can no longer afford to shop solely at Waitrose, I could afford to shop solely at Waitrose. Rake, say, 5 per cent off kumquat profits for a month and the company could fund the entire NHS.
Filing this thought under ‘not worthy’, I progressed to the real problem — which charity to plump for? Some were easy to dismiss; anything with ‘young offenders’ in the description, for example. But the rest lined up like strays at Battersea Dogs Home. To choose one was to reject the others. A vote for the old people’s minibus meant a kick in the teeth for autistic teenagers. Saying ‘yes’ to fighting dyslexia should have felt good, but all I could register was the ‘V’ I’d just flicked to battered wives. Every shopping trip was emotional torture.
I was tempted to take my grandmother’s route of refusing to give to charity at all because ‘you never know how much of your money will get through’.
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