First things first — apparently the site was down for an unknown period of time yesterday evening. It didn’t have anything to do with me, and I don’t know what caused it, but whatever was the problem has been fixed now. Still, my apologies.

So I was at the store today when, as I stood in line at the register, I saw a sign asking me to donate money to help out the victims of Hurricane Katrina. That in itself wasn’t surprising or offensive — after all, I guess they need money, and the same sort of thing happened when the tsunami hit late last year — but what did kinda irritate me was that this particular plea included a list of exactly what supplies could be purchased with the donated funds. Why? Well, according to the sign, for $5 the organization in question could afford to buy shampoo and toothpaste. For one child. For one day.

Read that again. What the fuck?! Consider that one can find entire bottles of shampoo and tubes of toothpaste at dollar stores across America — so what the hell are they doing? Yes, these people have lost their homes and possibly members of their family, but is giving them luxury bathroom products really going to improve the situation? I’m not even sure why they’d include that information in the first place. On the one hand, I could see it guilt-tripping people into giving more money — because apparently $5 and $10 donations can’t buy shit — but in my case it made me not want to give them a single red cent because these organizations obviously don’t know how to shop around. And you’d think they could get a discount on this shit!

I remember seeing similar stuff last year too, though — if I remember correctly, $5 could pay for a 4″ x 3″ box of nails to help build new homes for the tsunami victims. I sure hope those were some fucking great nails.