Sell Out

For the first two weeks of my summer, I stayed at home alone, like a loser. I picked up some shifts at the toy store I work at, but I still had too much time on my hands. So when my mom approached me with a one-day job handing out flyers she had found on an email chain, I immediately reached out. 

The woman who wanted flyer distribution was suspiciously not picky with her hiring process, which was not a problem with me. She asked me to call so she could run me through some of the details. At this point, I still had no idea what political agenda she was so eager to force down people's throats, but I live in one of the most liberal cities in the country, so I assumed it was either to help the homeless, the bees, or the environment.

She called me a couple of hours later while I was at work at the toy store. I could barely understand her. The store’s terrible Wi-Fi combined with her thick British accent made the conversation almost unintelligible. Here was what I managed to hear: mass-housing… construction… parking… ruin views… unbearable and disgusting. This conversation didn't leave me feeling great. I was positive I had misunderstood. Was she really against more mass-housing in a city that had too little? I felt torn. On one hand, I believed her cause might be genuinely immoral, and that by helping her I might be contributing to making the world a worse place. On the other hand, money.

If you're hoping this story ends with me standing up for what's right and telling this woman off, you're going to be terribly disappointed. The next day, I went to her house at 12 p.m. It wasn't that I made a conscious decision to trade on my morals. It was more that I was in denial about what was really going on. I drove up nervous. I had no idea what to expect.

I knocked on the door and was greeted by a woman in her 60s with a Michael Jackson level of plastic surgery who told me to take off my shoes. She brought me into the all-white kitchen, where she showed me maps as if she changed her mind and now wanted me to invade Normandy. She walked me through what streets to cover and which ones she had already done. Then she confirmed all my worst fears. She told me that her hair salon was near the proposed housing and that if the project were to go through, the traffic and parking situation would worsen. Not only was I saddened by her selfishness, but I wondered how a person could be so motivated by traffic and parking. She handed me a thick stack of printed flyers and a roll of Scotch tape before brushing me out the door. I was shaken.

As I was putting on my shoes, she decided it was time to try out small talk for the first time in her life. She asked how I heard about the opportunity, but before I had a chance to respond, she seemed to answer herself by making something up. She told me that I was the boyfriend of the daughter of one of the moms on the email chain. Still shaken by the morality issue, and the question itself, I tried to correct her.

“No, I’m the daughter.”

Not my proudest moment, but I recovered quickly.

“Haha, not a daughter… a son.”

I then decided I had not clarified enough and, in a tone that convinced neither her nor me, I said, “I’m not a girl.”

We then exchanged a look and decided it was best if I just left with my shoe half on. As I was sitting in my car trying to decipher her map, I thought about just driving home and throwing away the papers there. She hadn't asked for any proof that I had given them out. I could just toss them into a dumpster and drive away, probably even still get paid. But I didn't. That seemed even more wrong than fighting housing somehow.

So for the next three hours, I went from house to house in Beverly Hills helping the rich. I was only supposed to leave the flyers in mailboxes but met a few people as they were leaving their houses and had to talk to them. Here's what I was thinking during each of those interactions. Oh god, they're gonna beat me up. Oh wait they’re actually really into this. Did that guy just thank me for my time? Surprisingly, these people in Beverly Hills also didn't like the poor. When I left, I sent her photos of the work that I had done, and she sent me back a hundred-dollar Venmo payment. I had traded on everything I believed in for what? A hundred dollars and a roll of scotch tape. But would I do it again? Probably. 

I've thought about it a lot since then, and what I've come to realize is that the world is doomed. If you're in a certain liberal bubble, you've heard this a lot. But most people blame politics or “society.” It’s not that complicated. It’s selfishness. Principles last right up until they become inconvenient. I know that because I thought I was different until I really thought about it.

Singing Out, Cigarette in Hand, Laszlo Stein