Remember the days of the door to door salesman, that nerdy, sometimes creepy guy who went door to door shilling products for big corporations. With the advent of the internet and online shopping, these people have been tossed to the wayside. Avon no longer calls, but sends emails, nobody answers doors to guys with the newest sharpest knife anymore, I tried it, the court date is still pending. Today I had the closest experience to the door to door salesman that I've had it years, strangely enough it didn't come with a rapping, rapping on my chamber door, but on wikipedia of all places.
I was searching through wikipedia coincidentally enough for something else I was going to write, that didn't pan out, when I see it, a plea from the founder of wikipedia himself. Since curiousity killed the cat(it certainly wasn't that burlap sack with rocks if anyone from PETA is reading) I decided to check it out. It was then a funny thing happened, I heard a knocking sound, I opened my chamber door, darkness there and nothing more. Turns out the knocking sound occurred again when I opened the link. Clicking the link was like opening an imaginary door, standing on the other side, Jimmy Wales, the founder of wikpedia, asking me to donate to the site. I was shocked, in this era of modern technology, with a vast sea of resources available, this guy is doing the internet equivalent of selling me encyclopedias door to door.
Sure he didn't have a neat suit or a polished grin, he actually looked quite slovenly, he actually reminded me of the hobo on the Simpsons who created Itchy and Scratchy, bought a house of gold yet still dressed in his hobo garb. He tried to appeal to my good nature, telling me all the things could be learned from wikipedia, and for a low low price I could share in a piece of all this vital information. I guess through the screen he could still see that I wasn't interested, so he began the hard sell, appealing to my sense of community by telling me of all the volunteers that have added information to the site. In the words of the immortal Homer Simpson, do you know these so called volunteers don't even get paid? and as for community, cult members help each other out too, but they usually die in the end.
The thing I find best about wikipedia is that you can go into any page and edit the information, so I made a donation of 2o dollars on the site, then later I went back and edited that, changing it to 10, later again I edited it again and changed it to zero. I was overjoyed at this development, as I haven't been able to change history since my Delorean was repossessed, you try making the payments on those plutonium rods, it's insane. You see Mr. Wales, when you appeal to the good nature of someone, make sure they actually have a good nature.
I can only wonder what kind plan I could get by donating to this site, would I get the A websites the first month, then every letter every month after. I for one prefer to get my information from a source not named skater_boi_rulz25, so I had to say no to Mr. Wales, closing the virtual door on him, and closing the last chapter on the last descendant of the polyester peddlers. Anyways I don't need an encyclopedia, I've read the dictionary front to back, as it turns out the zebra did it *Puts on Shades* I....guess he.........couldn't change his stripes *walks away*
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