I know I’m going to hell for this but I can’t contain my disgust any longer: I hate the Susan Komen Foundation and I hope every regional office, every pink ribbon, every piece of crap Race For The Cure literature blows away in a huge hurricane-slash-earthquake-slash-wave-of-pestilence (or just for the irony, AIDS). Every September, we start to see the pink stuff everywhereand everybody is wearing their stupid pink ribbons. It started with some flyers in my mailbox about a Race For The Cure, which I moved from the mailbox to the trashcan with the cool efficiency of someone who has discovered anthrax spores on the mail. Then yesterday I breezed into the market and -bam- first thing any shopper saw was an enormous display of pink “Susan G. Komen” pink cupcakes, rice crispie treats with pink icing, pink cookies, and whatever else – probably things that are not recommended for fighting cancer. I didn’t stand there and stare because the mere sight of it filled me with rage so violent that I had to dig my nails into my wrist to keep from uplifting the table and sending it hurling across the baked goods section with a scream of triumph ripped from my white throat and the look of a marauder who barely stops seething enough to ask, “Who is next?”
I realize the Susan Komen people don’t want me to feel this way. They want me to support women with breast cancer. They want me to feel up my boobs in the shower and then donate a coupla bucks to their (very worthy if completely insane) organization. They want to instill in me a feeling of purpose when I see pink cupcakes and pink ribbons, all Adult Purpose like George Washington crossing the Potomac.
In reality, all I see is a bunch of nutcases who just do not know when to quit.
Must they oppress me with their presence everywhere? I tolerated it when they came into the shower with me with their little ads and their little “Check yourself for tumors like we all live in Chernobyl” voice. But some things are sacred. Like cupcakes. Do not market to me on my cupcakes. Doesn’t that seem queer to you? I do not want to think about breast cancer when I am trying to enjoy a cupcake, just like men probably don’t want to think about testicular cancer as they’re enjoying meatballs. Just doesn’t work. Fails on every level.
The night of my market rage, I made the mistake of grabbing my Self Magazine to take with me into a long, hot bath. There it was, on page 24, the pink. My cerebral cortex began to swell and itch. Calm down, I told myself. There’s little chance I would encounter the Evil Pink two times in a single day.
Lo, it is BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH and boy oh boy, Self Magazine is going all out. Every page is pink. Everything in it is about breast cancer. Not cervical cancer or leukemia or brain hemorrhaging – which is what I really needed an article on at this point. Just breast cancer because, as we all know, breast cancer is the only disease that is worth losing your flipping mind over. Apparently the Susan Komen Foundation had simply bought the entire magazine for the whole month. So you know I’m not overreacting, here is the proof (and keep in mind my pink rage was so acute by this point I stopped about 1/4 of the way through the magazine; I simply had pink saturation; I could not endure another pink page or the word “cancer”. Also, I only took pictures of the first page of the article – so basically every page here represents three or four more pages of pink.)
This is too much in a single publication. But it doesn’t stop there. Walking into a women’s sports store these days is like being mobbed by the ghost of every woman who ever had a cancer scare in her life. There are posters on the walls and displays and pink bras and pink Race For The Cure branded sneaks and shorts and watches and water bottles and energy bars. They will not leave me alone. They’re with me when I buy my cupcakes, when I run to burn off the calories from the cupcake, and when I go into the shower afterwords.
I don’t even know what they’re hoping to accomplish anymore. It doesn’t even seem to be about raising money, just infiltrating every corner of every woman’s life with a pink breast cancer traffic signal. I will never, ever donate a dime to the foundation – not because it’s not worthy (it certainly is) but because it fills me with such violent, choking, paroxysmal fury that if I have a choice between giving a charity dollar to the Susan Komen Foundation and any other organization, even if its for male pattern baldness, I will give it to the other one. I will not only give it to someone else, if I have the chance I will actually steal money from the Susan Komen Foundation to give to some charity that deals with childhood diseases. After all, these predatory marketing professionals have obviously lived long enough to not only survive but annoy the living bejeesus out of all of us who have never had the disease. Might as well give the kids a chance to at least grow up.
I believe the Susan Komen Foundation has become actually disgusting. Its coffers must be insanely fat to fund all the Self Magazine layouts, the local and national races, all the pink cupcakes and other branded merch, all the crap that they throw out there in the blind hope of raising awareness. It’s not even about the cancer victims anymore; I don’t know what Komen does except advertise itself and instill in me a hatred for all things related to this charity.
They can’t even fix it now. The hatred is so entrenched in my soul that even if I were stricken with the disease tomorrow, I would plead with my friends to have nothing to do with this self-important jagoff organization. I would be ashamed to be associated with it. It would be as horrific as being associated with NAMBLA.
If you’re a cancer victim and Susan Komen has done great work for you, then I’m pleased. Obviously all the pain they’ve put me through has resulted in some goodness. But I’ve had enough. I am reclaiming my breasts and my shower-time.
Join me, people. Free yourselves from the Pink Menace! The pink ribbon has bound you! It is time to free yourself, to walk bravely into the daylight.
Not for the Cure.
But for your own peace of mind.
