We get a lot of requests for money. Most of these requests come from charities. These charities help the poor in Appalachia, India, China, Africa, the American Southwest, the American Midwest, and South or Central America, Harlem, or Haliburton. Many of the mailings include pictures of thin, big-eyed waifs begging the camera for "something" - or skeletal babies covered in flies. Accompanying each pathetic picture is a story of grief and tragedy worthy of any episode of the Queen for a Day television show my grandmother devotedly watched every week. These pictures intend to pull at your emotions which will, in turn, impair your judgment and cause you to give up more money than you might have intended.

One particular money-extracting technique is to bestow some sort of "gift" upon you, the gift forcing you to give up money due to a guilty obligation to "pay" for the gift. Many charities give you address labels. Others will include a penny or a dime. Many others send Christmas cards.

A particularly generous charity is Billy Mill's Running Strong. This Lakota charity has gifted me with a belt buckle (which I don't use) and a t-shirt (which I do use). Running Strong was the leader in the "gifting" category until Feeding America's Hungry Children gave me panties.

Panties.

Little girl panties.

The spiel is complicated. In short, if I send them $4.93 and return the panties, Feeding America's Hungry Children will be able to give those panties to some needy child. Huh?

I looked at the label on the panties. "Made in Pakistan." At best, these panties cost $1.00. So if I give $4.93, then $3.93 are left over. Seems to me they could ask for the money, not send panties, use the $4.93 to put panties on three little girls and use the remaining $0.93 left over to cover costs. Apparently, that's not how it works.

I also received a form to fill out when I send my $4.93.
It is the small print that tells the truth and it essentially says:

• We may use your money for panties. We may not.
• We may use your money to buy food for the hungry children of America. We may not.
• We will use it however we want to. If the Reverend Don needs a new Lexus, your money will help us buy that Lexus. If the ministry has hefty legal fees to pay, your money will help pay those fees.

How am I to know?

So I am in a quandary. What do I do with a pair of size 4 little girl panties? There are certain porn sites where size 4 little girl panties would fetch a premium price but that seems so ... so ... well, unsavory. Besides the feds are probably the main visitors at these sites and getting $50 for a pair of unsoiled $1.00 panties doesn't seem like a good deal when life in a Guantanamo-like federal facility is the outcome.

I could use the panties as a rag for cleaning windows or polishing furniture but they are "unspoiled" and that seems a waste of perfectly good panties. I could offer them to an appropriately aged girl but that might be misconstrued and I'd still end up in the aforementioned Guantanamo-like federal facility. What I won't do is cough up the $4.93 in guilt money because the whole idea of sending panties to stimulate that guilt is really over the top.

What were they thinking? Have they lost the point?

Mother Theresa never sent me panties and she managed to do her work just fine.