vituperation

October 4, 2002

Miz Lili was mighty fine to look upon as she
moved our way while the sun was rising.
Why, thank you for noticing, I do take a mean
picture, don’t I?

There was a volunteer meeting at the Animal Control shelter last night. The woman in charge of the volunteers - whom I shall call Mary - had told me last Saturday that she hoped I’d come to this meeting (despite the fact that it was scheduled on Survivor night) because they traditionally have a low turnout at the volunteer meetings. When I signed the sheet of volunteer names upon my arrival, I noticed there were three pages worth of volunteer names.

Six volunteers showed up at the meeting.

Mary had told me that she’d been telling everyone the meeting would start at five so we could really start at 5:30. I arrived at 5:30; the meeting actually started at just after six. We were a motley bunch, that’s for sure: me, an older (retired, perhaps?) couple, a single girl who looked at me like she thought she knew me but wasn’t sure (hey, my first readerstalker?), and a youngish couple who made me think of Berkeley.

The amount of work the shelter wants to accomplish is phenomenal, and apparently I’ll be doing a large chunk of it. For starters, I have to create a non-profit (501(c)(3), if you care) organization for the volunteers, including making sure the corporation is set up right, figuring out which IRS papers need to be filled out, suggesting bylaws, and I have a sinking suspicion I’ll be asked to be on the board of directors.

I was also given a sheet of paper with twenty-five ‘excuses’ on it, each with a blank line next to it. The idea is to get people to pay a buck for an excuse not to donate money to the animal shelter. Or maybe it was an excuse TO donate, which would make more sense. If anyone out there wants to donate (hint, hint), feel free to stick a buck in an envelope and mail it to Fred Saves Some Pets, PO Box 565, Madison AL 35758. Go ahead and do that, I can wait a minute. I was going to give the option to donate a buck via PayPal, but they charge me $.31 per transaction if I do. The hell with that.

Please, mail a buck. Save a pet. Keep Fred from having to beg co-workers for money. Think of all the joy you get from your pets. Hell, think of the joy you get from this site.

Ahem.

I’m also up to work the pet store again later this month, and they want me to help with the “media blitz” for a national pet identification program coming up in January. I’m hoping to get a billboard of myself put up in a highly visible place in town for that one.

But all those things are nothing, compared to the creme de la creme volunteer task that yours truly got. They were talking about this thing called “Santa Paws”, you see, coming up in December. One of the best moneymakers ever, Mary said.

Here’s how it works: one of the nice pet stores here provides space in the store, a camera, film, pretty little cardboard frames for pictures, and a Santa costume. This particular pet store is one that welcomes pets, so people bring their dogs and cats to the store where, for a mere ten dollars, they get not one but TWO pictures of their pet with Santa Claus, in nice little cardboard frames. The shelter volunteers do all the work, the pet store provides all the props, and each group gets five of the ten bucks. Raises all sorts of money for the shelter.

“Fred, can you help us with that…” Mary asked.

“Sure,” I said, eager to help out because, as can be seen above, I can take a hell of a picture.

“…as Santa?” she finished.

I blinked.

“Oh, great!” she exclaimed, “I’ll put you down as our Santa Claus. Hopefully I can find a second one, so you can split the day with them. That suit’s pretty hot.”

“As long as I wear it first, and get to sweat it up for someone else,” I said.

Heh. Santa Fred.

The best part? I’ll have to pad the suit so I’ll look fat. I like that.