The art of chugger avoidance

February 09, 2010

Walking down the high street in the pedestrian zone of most any English town, you will quickly discover the people who have lived in the town for more than a few months. There are blindingly obvious signs you are an outsider in Reading if you can't avoid the most common norms of walking downtown.
I am not talking about the signal lights crossing into and out of the pedestrian zone that only seem to work every ten or fifteen minutes. Don't worry as this is only a major road used by buses, taxis, delivery vehicles, other automobiles and even the homicidal bike rider intent on mowing down as many walkers as possible. Simply look down the street, judge the distance and calmly walk across the street. You are known as an out of towner if you actually wait for the crossing light to turn green with its accompanying screeching noise before you cross. Well, you might be someone from Warsaw, but you can't ever really explain people from Warsaw.
You will be used to the guy who might be homeless sitting on the corner by the drug store nightly playing his guitar and singing with his gravel rough voice most likely caused by years of hard living. They are the out of towners and normally heavily intoxicated who try to stop and talk to the local "blues" man. He calmly ignores them as we walk by chuckling to ourselves about those silly tourists who try to request songs. He is now doing afternoon shows on the other corner. I think the matinee crowd is not quite as good as he seems to do these infrequently.
No, I can pick out the "others" by their inability to spot and use the natural cover to avoid the English institution of chuggers. Most people would ask, "What is a chugger?" Well, I must confess, I picked the term up from one of the locals.
The term is a cute combination of "charity & muggers." The chuggers are the charity workers who will lie in wait from one end of the high street to the other in groups of five to ten who will attempt to stop random people to explain their causes and solicit card donations conveniently withdrawn monthly from your account. They are very clever, because they can not accept standard donations, but now take your details and credit card or bank card details which as I said "will automatically debit from your account the set amount of only X number of pounds a month. This is less than a couple of cups of coffee."
They see the "fresh meat" coming a mile away. Any eye contact and they will close in. The cry of "Do you have a moment?" echoes across the street. "I am working for . . . . " Now you are trapped and they have you pinned with pictures of something horrible to pile on guilt. Now don't get me wrong, I am American. I tip, I give to charity all the time and I volunteer to help out when I can. Apparently England is proud of the fact it donates so much to charity. It ranks within the top twenty of the EU. Now ask yourself how may countries are in the EU. Not a ringing endorsement. Besides, they get ahead a little because of the strong pound. . .
So those who have been here a little while will walk slightly behind and off to one side of the person in front of them upon seeing the pack of chuggers working the street. If the chugger moves, they will first try and pick off the person in the front. Yes, you will see us old hands using the trees as blocking agents, other walkers and mail boxes as cover and even those homicidal cyclists as screeners for us. If all else fails, a hard turn into one of the shops can spring the trap.
On a Saturday a few weeks ago, I saw chuggers from three children's charities, one for homeless shelters, one for cruelty to animals, one for homes in third world countries, one for affordable housing, one for developing infrastructure in third world countries and one working for the liberation of Palestine. It almost made me feel sorry for the poor Socialists trying to rail against the evils of all capitalism. Almost. . .
So I am now an old hand at these quirks of this town. Just a word of warning. If you have to take a hard turn into one of the stores make sure you choose a correct store to go into and realize they may wait for you. . .