The amount of people asking me to sponsor their charity walks has been growing exponentially.  I get to work in the morning and the supplicants are forming a line before I even have a chance to sit down.  Look--I just bounded up four flights of stairs, as I do every day, but do you see me going over to your cubes and asking for a dollar per step?

Don’t get me wrong.  The charities are worthy.  I’m in favor of healthy breasts, healthy hearts, and healthy lungs.  I admit it’s a little easier to relate to the healthy breasts thing.  I often think during the day that I like breasts, and the breasts that exist should be protected.  I often gain perspective on this weighty issue by examining the healthy breasts in my range of sight. But, I mean, in theory I’m in favor of healthy hearts and lungs too, although they’re more abstract to me.  No girl has ever said to me, “Greg, can you please look at me when you’re talking to me and not my lungs?” Also, I definitely don’t like diseases and whatnot.  I’m even willing to take a stand on this and say that diseases are bad.

Charities are fine. Charitable giving is fine. It’s just the walk part that bothers me.  Yeah, what a great sacrifice you’re making--you’re going on a walk.  Paul Revere’s got nothing on you.  I would rather just give people the money for the charity and have them stay home.  Or, even better, give them the money if they start going to the gym more often.  Because wouldn’t we have a healthier nation, and possibly a few less charity walks, if people just took care of themselves once in a while?  Snap off your TIVOd library of Desperate Housewives and hop on a treadmill and I’ll write you the cheeriest check you’ve ever seen.

Maybe a compromise would be that we stop doing walks, and instead something that requires a little more symbolic sacrifice.  Something that represents a real devotion to the cause.  For example: a charity Go to Strangers’ Houses and Tear Up Their Flowerbeds Until They Call the Cops.  I’ll kick in fifty an hour for that.