Community Service and I’m Still the Mack

Last Saturday, me and other Communication graduate students participated in The Big Event (or the Sizable Spectacle, or the Humongous Happening, but then again I’m the only one who calls it those things). The Big Event is a university-wide community service day in which students organize in groups and are assigned brief service projects for the day.

I don’t know why I signed up for this because I hate helping people.

Not because I hate people, though I do that too occasionally. I’m just lazy. Sure I could go to Appalachia and help build houses for low-income people, but wouldn’t you rather play video games? I could volunteer at a soup kitchen to feed the homeless, but wouldn’t you rather order a pizza for yourself? I could help that old lady who just slipped and fell on the ground directly in front of me, but wouldn’t you rather point and laugh? I know I would!

The day before was a consistent rainfall, and the forecast called for it to continue to the day of the Big Event. Yes! I won’t have to do community service, though I can still say I wanted to and signed up for it. I’m all about glossy, squeaky-clean appearances with no substance. I set my alarm that night for 8:00 the next morning, just in case.

My alarm screams. I roll over and take a peek outside my bedroom window. Grim, cloudy skies, but no rain. Shit! I put on some ratty old clothes and drove to the Drillfield, where all the Communication volunteers were meeting.

Eight of us volunteered. We were assigned two jobs and would therefore be split into two teams. Fortunately, one of the assignments was canceled; that involved staining a deck. The other assignment involved going to an old woman’s house to do yard work: raking leaves, picking up sticks, cleaning gutters, etc. With eight of us (seven of us working, and me pretending to), we could surely knock this thing out in an hour or two and then I could go get my drink on.

We got to the house and went about our tasks. Fortunately two other people got conscripted to clean the gutters. I, on the other hand, was assigned to rake leaves. I can do that. By doing that, I mean raking the same small area of the yard multiple times. The rest of the yard looks the same, but that one spot I did looks immaculate. Fortunately, Josh, my colleague who actually does schoolwork well before it’s due, was also assigned to leaf-raking, and he did most of the work.

Sweet. Barely a couple hours later and everyone’s done, even the slow people. All we have to do is pack our stuff up, a quick courteous “we’re finished, anything else you’d like us to do for you,” and a 5 minute ride downtown, and I’ll be eating nachos and drinking beer in no time.

“Anything else you need us to do today ma’am?”

“Actually, I need all of these bushes in the backyard trimmed.”

Fuck me.

These bushes are all over the place. I felt like I was navigating through the Amazon trying to get back and trim everything. I got cuts on my fingers. Cuts! Fingers! Blood! Dirt! My hands are too delicate to have this happen to them!

Finally we finished trimming all that crap. We were finally ready to go. Alas, we could not go just yet. The old woman made us lunch. Ham salad sandwiches. I really don’t understand ham salad sandwiches. Why not just go ahead and make it a ham and cheese sandwich? What else was in that ham salad? Thinking back, I don’t recall tasting anything remotely close to ham in those sandwiches. That bothers me.

I ate two ham salad sandwiches and spilled my Dr. Pepper all over the tray with the chips and dip. The sandwiches were edible. The chips tasted like salt and Dr. Pepper. The Dr. Pepper was refreshing. There were some sandwiches left over as we were about to leave. The woman asked if any of us wanted to take them home.

No one made a sound.

I was the closest to the old woman when she made her announcement, so she gave them to me. What a lucky man I am.

I don’t think the Big Event was a total wash for me. I think I’ve learned something. No, I still hate helping people (BORING!). However, I think I’ve found the real personal benefit to community service. It’s not a sense of fulfillment from helping people out. It’s not the camaraderie that develops between you and your friends from working together for a good cause.

It’s ham salad sandwiches. And Dr. Pepper.

I’d be more open to helping people if the reward was nachos.