Suckass night on the hills of SF. Got waved away without even an open door so many times I wondered if I was sneering instead of smiling. But I practiced in the darkened glass of the empty homes and I knew my smile was bright and sincere.
A huge tree behind the hill I trudged up raged in the wind as the fog gathered behind which was ready to pounce once the sun finished setting. It had to be 40 mile and hour winds up there tonight. The whole time I was canvassing the neighborhood, the wind on that enormous tree made a sound like a plane landing, for 2 hours!
I have a feeling that wind blew the mojo right out from within my ACLU t-shirt.
Finally on the second pass through the 'hood, I found two concerned, outraged individuals that decided tonight was the night to become part of the solution. Without them, my tally sheet would have a big fat zero in the total box and that's never fun.
The worst part, though, wasn't the lack of new members. It was the lack of interesting, engaging conversations that really bothered me. On a night I can't get people to sign up, at the very least I do want them to listen for a few moments 'cause otherwise I'm just a lowly doorbell tester.
Turned out that no one had a very good night. That is, except for one guy, who happened to reel in a donation quite a bit larger than I would ever expect. He didn't even get to the 'Ask' part. This generous individual just whipped out their checkbook and wrote 6 numbers in a row, including a decimal. I suppose if I test enough doorbells, a few of them will be winners!
Five doors before I was done as nine 0'clock rolled closer, I heard a child practicing the trumpet. Duh nah nah nah nah-naaaaah!! he or she bugled falteringly, and in my head I finished the call, hoping it would bring me renewed vigor to my final doors. Charge I did, but in the end, my donation sheet and I were routed, soundly.
Looks like Field Manager is in my future. And I just signed the forms that let me drive for the organization. I'm cool with that. It'll be fun to get out of the city and helpfully harass some suburban folk. I hear they have good lemonade.