Save the Manatee

I went to a job interview the other day. I didn’t want the job, so the first thing I said to the guy when we met was, “I don’t think I’m the guy for this job.” Probably not the best way to start an interview, but candor has always been my thing. It was a job selling mortgage leads. I have found I can’t really sell things. Sure, the opportunities always seem promising, and of course I buy into it, thinking this could be just the thing for me. But it never pans out. When I contacted this guy, he began to sell me on the job. There was talk about the money. I can make 5k a week. I am interested. That would put me on the lot for an OC chick, with options and upgrades. Mind you, I am married, but I can still measure my dick like any other guy, can’t I? Then there was the fast talk, incessant. I started getting bored, then annoyed. I can’t talk like this guy. I hope that won’t preclude me from selling his product. At one point he proclaimed that this was easy money.
“I mean, we’re not saving the manatees here,” he said.
This threw me. I was suddenly confused. What did he mean? Was he trying to say that the manatees are not worth saving? Are mortgage leads more important then that cute, helpless seal-like creature? No, he couldn’t be saying that. Was he saying that yes, the preservation of the manatee is the noblest of pursuits, and selling leads is just a way to put food on the table and chicks in your car, nothing noble about it? I really thought about that for a while. I think more than anything it was a statement about practicality. There’s no money in saving the manatee, regardless of the humanitarian angle. Perhaps it was a way of dividing the bleeding heart from the mortgage lead salesman, like there’s no room for warm hearts in this business, even though this creature’s very existence is threatened. My only question was why aren’t we saving the manatee, here? I mean, if something’s worth doing…