I’m not saying that certain people don’t canvass for NYPIRG because of the greater good. I’m just saying that I was not one of those people.

NYPIRG stands for New York Public Interest Research Group—it’s essentially a progressive lobbying organization. They’ve been heavily involved in fighting the natural gas interests that have been trying to turn Ulster County into a giant cesspool of noxious fracking chemicals.

Which I respect. My experience with NYPIRG occurred five years ago, before fracking was a thing, and NYPIRG was railing against the less location-specific issue of Global Warming.

I currently know the individual who is in charge of canvassing for New Paltz’s NYPIRG chapter during the summer (NYPIRG only canvasses during the summer. They spend the rest of the year putting the canvassed money to use), and I don’t know HOW she does it. There’s so much…rejection involved (Roger isn’t good with rejection). I guess I wasn’t particularly good at invading peoples’ personal space by rapping on their doors and asking them for cash, because I was only able to get one donation during the two days I worked there.

Which means I didn’t make a lot of money. NYPIRG canvassers work off commissions, receiving one-third of whatever they bring in. This works well as an incentive, but it also brings in people that aren’t really passionate about the issues and are just looking for money.

Day 1

The last person I had attempted to hit up had yelled at me to “get off [his] property,” so I was overjoyed to find a receptive old lady at the next house. I delved into the issues, making a fine argument as to why she should open her wallet, and she seemed prepared to do just that.

“Welll…let me get my son…he’s the one in charge of money issues around here.”

Without even having to beckon, her son appeared. He was a monolithic, unreceptive-looking slab of a man who was also clearly drunk.

“Wuz all this?”

I gave my spiel in the most affable way possible. He stopped me a quarter of the way through.

“Dere the types of people that closed mah plant.”

I glanced down at my clipboard to see if there was a suggestion about how to deal with “potential donators whose lives NYPIRG has ruined,” but there was nothing. I backed out as quickly as I could.

~

Later in the day, I walked up to a small house in the town of Newburgh (not to be confused with the CITY of Newburgh) ringed with a short board fence. There was an irate dog behind the fence, and it immediately began barking its ass off.

I attempted to placate the dog through a series of amicable dog-noises, but it just kept barking like I was strapped with a suicide vest. A man appeared at the screen door.

“HUL-lo!” I exclaimed brightly over the dog’s death-barks.

“Come to the side door.”

This was a good omen. I didn’t know, however, how I was going to bypass the hound to do this.

“Uh…”

“No…stay on the outside of the fence…just walk around the perimeter.”

I skirted to the side of the house, where the man was already standing. Apparently, the man had beckoned me to the side door exclusively to bitch me out. So I was forced to listen for ten minutes about how both my cause and I as an individual were stupid. Only then did he tell me to “get the fuck outta here.”

Day 2

They had free coffee at the NYPIRG office. We met at the office each morning to discuss the issues we were going to press upon people throughout the afternoon. Loving both coffee and free things, I elected to house three or four large coffees throughout the morning, getting increasingly cracked-out with each java. I guess this was the whole point of having free coffee there, but I overdid it.

Come 1 PM, the canvassers piled into the NYPIRG van, where we were distributed throughout a particular neighborhood in the Mid-Hudson Valley. Due to the rain that morning, we had a late start.

I was plunked down somewhere in Dutchess County, to be picked up in five hours with (hopefully) a bunch of checks.

As soon as the van left my line of sight, I had to urinate badly. I rang a few doorbells in hope of donations/bathrooms, but no one answered.

I was in a tightly-packed suburban neighborhood, so there wasn’t any woods to drop a leak in. Temporarily abandoning my canvassing mission, I minced around the neighborhood, looking for a parcel of land that wasn’t filled with yard. It got to the point where I couldn’t even walk quickly, or even at a normal rate, because I was afraid my bladder was going to rupture.

Then I saw it: about a quarter of a mile down the road—a dead-end filled with urine-accepting nature. I was at the point where I couldn’t really stick my leg out too far while walking because it would loosen whatever lower-abdominal muscles where keeping the piss in.

I was within 100 feet when it started leaking out. I kinda hopped the last few feet, ripped down the front of my pants (there wasn’t time for unzipping) and let loose in an orgasmic flow of relief.

When I finished several minutes later, I took a look at my pants: there was a huge wet-mark down the front that had obviously originated from my penis. I couldn’t go around like this. I had the option of placing an emergency call to the NYPIRG handlers, but I really didn’t wanna tell them what had happened.

Using the very acme of my intelligence, I came up with a solution: just roll around in a puddle…THAT way, you can simply claim you were caught in this morning’s rainstorm, and no one will be the wiser!

After checking the surrounding houses to see if anyone was looking, I crawled into a puddle and rolled around in it until I was soaking wet.

I went about the rest of my day, slowly drying. And didn’t receive a single donation.

It was time for a new job.