Save the Tigers

The girl who lives next door is probably ten or eleven. She often comes around on some sort of project. One time it was an offer of $2 to sweep the area around our condo's door. (We took her up on it.) Another time it was selling chocolates. (They were milk chocolate so I had to decline) Today she came to my door with a clipboard.

"Would you like to help save the tigers?"

"What do they need saving from?"

"Poaching. There's only 5000 of them left in the wild."

"How can I help save them?"

"You just sign here."

She holds out her blue clipboard which is covered in soccerball stickers. It has a piece of lined paper clipped to it and in her neatest ten year old penmanship it reads "Sighn if you Care" and then there are squares she has drawn one of which says "Name". I obliged and she gave Caleb a pet while I did so.

"Is this a chihuahua?"

"Yes."

"My friend Stephanie has one."

"Cool."

Every time she sees Caleb she asks me if he's a chihuahua and then tells me that Stephanie has one too. I thanked her for letting me help save the tigers and off she went. She kind of reminds me of myself around the same age and it made me laugh. I used to go around selling flowers to the neighbours which I had probably taken from their yards. I used to make lilac potpourri by microwaving lilacs and try to get people to buy it and I'm sure if I had heard that the tigers were disappearing I'd have gone around to my neighbours trying to get them to sign a piece of paper and hoping that if everyone cared enough just their vote to save the tigers would somehow save the tigers. I love the simplicity of this idea. I think I may just go around and get people to sign to end world hunger and stop the wars. I don't have to send them anywhere or do anything with it. Just the fact that people care will be enough for me. And while I'm at it I might offer to do some sweeping for cash, that seems like a win-win for everyone.