Filling Out My Arbor Day Survey

The husband and I have been told that we live in a prestige zipcode, so we get a lot of requests for money.

There are a whole lot of legal charities that have their hands out, and we get them all.   They all want your money.  Some do it with straightforward letters of appeal.  Others are simply manipulative.  There are those that you read and you can hear Sally Struthers in your head, pleading with you to "sending your twenty-nine dollars a month will help feed and cloth Rita and her fifteen siblings.  Ask yourself could you go without shoes, down thorn laced trails that are filled with snakes towards the only school in a 150-mile radius?"

Some of the plaintive pleas for money send gifts in the mail to get you to give.  We received lots of return address labels decorated with the art of shoeless children, while some include cliche images of the flag, kittens or puppies.  The puppies and kittens have plaintive eyes that say "How could you use these stickers if you don't donate to us?"

This year, we received a very special message from the Arbor Day people.  Despite cutting down a 100-foot tall pin-oak because it was a threat to the safety of our house and the neighbors.  Big trees, planted ten feet from your house are a hazard.

Still, the husband and I love trees.  After the oak was removed we planted four good sized birch trees.

So the Arbor Day people know we're a soft touch.

The packet included the requisite return address stickers - clearly, we really need to start writing more letters which requires more trees being cut down and more paper to be used, but who needs to worry about that at a time like this, right?

They also included vouchers for free trees, which are about two inches tall when you get them, but they are trees and they are free, but not from guilt.  But packet also included a "survey of vital importance."  We know this because it said so on the envelope.

In addition to asking our age, our level of educational attainment, blah, blah, blah, in the first four questions, section two is where we get down to the nitty-gritty:

5. "Have you ever climbed a tree?"  It had been so long since I had done this - fifty years or so - that I had to answer "no" as I have not tried to haul my 55-year-old hulking self up a tree in a number of years.

6. "When you were a child, did you ever play under or amongst trees?" Verily, I did.  And as an adult, I played with men amongst the trees as well.

7. Did you collect leaves, acorns and pine cones for a school project - or just for fun?  Maybe a school project, once.  But for fun?  I am neither "Krafty and Kreative" or a squirrel.  But since these are all yes or no questions, I felt that this required that I consult with my childhood friend Sharon who said "Seriously, Cookie.  What the fuck is this about."

8. Do you relax in the shade of a tree?  Folks, you can make this shit up.

9. Do you think that White Oak is the appropriate choice for the state tree of Maryland?  It is? You tell me.

10. Do you think, in general, that the people of Maryland care about trees more than the people in other parts of the country?  How the fuck should I know?  These are people that when you need to get around them and say "Excuse me," lash out at you for not waiting your turn while they waddle down the cheese danish aisles at the grocery.

11. WHICH one of following, would you say is the most important function of a tree?  Being a source of beauty is definitely more important than slowing climate change.

I could go on, but it was more of the same until you get to the backside and complete question seventeen, (which, I am disappointed to say was not "If you could be a tree, any tree, which tree would you be?") was the statement:

NOW... It's time to redeem all your FREE gift vouchers!  

[ ] I'm enclosing all my FREE GIFT vouchers and my donation of...

If the vouchers are free trees, why do I need to include a dime?  Yes, I see where if I donate an additional ten dollars I also get a free calendar - again, made from living trees that were cut down and destroyed that we are supposed to be worshipping - and two crepe myrtles.

Seriously people, what they hey.  Not a question, but a point.  You are creating a ton of carbon dioxide to raise ten dollars.  How does that help anyone?  It certainly isn't helping any trees that perhaps I may come upon (Mind out of the gutter, Norma) and admire, only to have you come along, cut it down to make paper pulp so you can make paper to do a mailing to raise money to save a tree, washing rinse and repeat.

Hells bells, there isn't even a recycled paper stamp on the damned quiz!

So, since my housework is done and the weather could behave today I could lie about outdoors, but truth be told, Cookie is an "indoor person".  Less chance of an asthma attack, skin cancer, and ticks.

I think that you shall never see, Cookie resting under yonder large tree.  

Poems like this are made by fools like thee 
But only Cookie can make Cookie haul his ass out
And plotz it down under yon flipping tree.