Plastic Bracelets

Over the past few months the subject of those charming little bracelets that started with Lance's "Live Strong" fund raiser have come up in conversation abnormally often. This is only because every company, fund raiser and organization has come up with their own take on the product. I didn't think all that much on it until I read an article in either People or Time talking about how the introduction of this trinket has ruined fund raising for everyone - and I tend to agree with the reasoning. You see, the bracelet itself was a phenominal idea: The customer gets a small, cheap piece of rubber in exchange for the $2 they paid to the charity Lance supported. The problem came about when stores began to run out of them and other entrapraneaurs put them up on E-Bay for hundreds of dollars... The fashion of having the bracelet began to become more important then the reasoning behind it.

Soon after, every store was carrying some take on the 'jewelry' to fill demand. First it was Adidas with its multi-colored pieces of rubber with their own logo on it. These were pricey and the profit went into corporate coifers. Then other charities picked up on - which was okay but it diluted the meaning of the original bracelet. Now we're stuck with every sports team, country, holiday, fashion line and corporation coming out with their own piece of the phenominon.

What brings me to comment on this now and not before was the company I work for recently began distributing these bracelets to all the collegues. I wouldn't be so upset but my boss asked me to wear one. The bracelets aren't tacky or cheaply made, but I refused to wear it on principle. I haven't fallen into this pit of modern trend and don't have any intention of ever falling in. At the time it was difficult for me to word my objections as well as I could have and my boss thought I was just being a "negative Nancy", (as she likes to say). It even seemed as though she took a mild offense to the fact that I wanted no part of the trend, but because these bracelets support nothing but the coorporate machine I work for I saw no need to become one of the crowd.

Eventually, twenty years from now, our children will be watching the modern equivalent of VH-1 "Back to the 2000's" and we're all going to have to listen to the comedians, actors and singers of their day put us down for our stupidity. I want to be able to honestly say that I never took part in this - even if it means that my boss and everyone else thinks that I'm just trying to be difficult.