Well, I got news for you: doing good releases the same dopamine triggered by smoking meth, car-jacking and autoerotic asphyxiation. Not such good company for do-gooders to be keeping, is it? Every dollar in the hands of a homeless person, every elderly person helped across the street, every charitable donation to do-goodery is like a fat rail of high-grade cocaine or an orgasm on amyl nitrate.

But where does that leave the people they’ve helped? They float away on their serotonin bubble of self-contentment while their victims are left wondering if these “do-gooders” were really being nice, or they just enjoy showing those less fortunate how miserable their lives are. I mean, who’s helping who, here? 

These philanthropists don’t fool me. They may seem like happy, well-adjusted and caring people, but their magnanimous antics are merely a cover for a sinister insecurity that could easily lead to addiction. There is a gaping hole in their feelings of self-worth, and the only way these sadistic bastards can fill that void is by doing acts of goodwill. Imagine, dear people, to what lows one could sink if these charitable inclinations weren’t tempered by some degree of selfishness or self-preservation. This unbridled benevolence could lead some down a very dark road.  

This happened to a very dear friend, who shall remain nameless in this tragic tale.  I’ll only refer to him as Carl Edward Addams, or as CEA for short. He’s dead anyway, so it really doesn’t matter. Like many well-to-do people who felt guilty for being well-off, CEA felt a pang of remorse, each time he indulged himself with his hard-earned money. His life felt empty and meaningless. He felt compelled to do something to help those less fortunate, to give the unlucky devils a leg up in this world.

CEA thought by doing good, he could make this world a better place, and ease some of his guilt in the process. But he didn’t realize that good had its dark side. One would think that fraternizing with this unsavory element would be enough to disincline him from his quest to save the world, but it only spurred him further. He saw firsthand how the poor were suffering.  He knew that many of them would not be in their current situation had they not been born into unfortunate circumstances. He finally had a purpose in life. It was now CEA’s mission to help the developing classes. 

He joined countless organizations to make a difference: Pet the Dolphins, Save the Whales, Help the Homeless, Burn the Conservatives. He graciously promised to do anything or give any amount to help with these noble causes. His name and contact information soon got out on the national suckers’ registry, and suddenly CEA was juggling dozens of calls from various people and organizations he’d never heard of before. All of them asking for money, time and support. 

With nothing to counteract his giving impulse, CEA dedicated so much of his time and resources to these causes that he began to miss work. He lost contact with friends and family, withdrawing into a world that revolved around only one thing: giving. His innocent desire to help others had become an insatiable craving that was beyond control. CEA became so stoned on his own generosity that he finally lost his job and started running out of money himself. He emptied his bank accounts and hocked whatever belongings he had left, all so he could give more to charities and donate to all the other causes.

So addicted to his own beneficence, CEA had to panhandle for change just to scrape by. But rather than keep anything for himself, he gave it right back to his fellow panhandlers. He even turned to philanthropic prostitution, engaging in unseemly and unhygienic sexual acts with strangers. Selling his body, so he had more money to donate to the less fortunate. 

Toward the end, CEA was eating out of dumpsters or in the same soup kitchens where he once served the homeless. He waited in line for the cold, leftover soup and stale crust of bread. He sat through the same boring sermons about the meek inheriting the earth, and the kingdom of heaven being his in the promised land. CEA failed to realize that he was fast becoming the very class of people he had endeavored to help in the first place. But his reckless addiction soon made him unable to help even himself.

His self-preservation wasting away, CEA became emaciated, worn down, unable to cop his next altruistic fix. And finally, he succumbed to the same squalid fate he was attempting to help others avoid. His generosity won out over even his survival instincts, and Carl Edward Addams finally wasted away to nothing. Only a big fat smile of contentment left on his face, as though giving his life was his greatest charitable act of all. 

Generosity is a drug, and you can get hooked on it!

I must admit, I hadn’t paid the rent for at least nine months, so I should have seen it coming. But I guess my brain just hadn’t formed well enough to think rationally. Back then, I was still that congealing slime between embryonic stew and the solid substance of a real human being. I just couldn’t coagulate into a productive life form, and go out and get a job like other fetuses. 

While I was quite content to lie in that gravy state for the rest of my days, my biological landlady wasn’t having it. She was tired of lugging my overweight fetus around, and she finally had to take matters into her own hands. Like most ingrate offspring, my mother knew that after ten months, I wasn’t going to leave without a fight. So, she thought it best to have the doctor surgically remove me from my embryonic bliss. With tears in her eyes, my mother requested the doctor perform a cesarean eviction.  

I know what you’re thinking… that’s abortion! That’s where you’re wrong. I grew up Catholic. In my family, it was a quick cesarean section, and you were thrown out of the house if you didn’t pull your weight. There’s a big difference. Besides, there were no pro-life activists around to give my mother a hard time back then. There was really nothing to protest. Everyone knew I was just a gold-bricking bum who had no right to stay. Yeah, but the joke was on my mother in the end. The doctor had to make a bigger opening just to get everything out.

After nine plus months in a cramped apartment, you get to accumulate a few things. Tiny furniture, just the right size for a developing fetus. There was my zygote loveseat, my fetal position rocking chair, and an embryonic dinette set (just one chair and a table, but a set all the same). I also had a few of those baby-sized velvet oil paintings… You know, to class up the womb.

All I can say is my mother’s lucky I was born in the 60s; I only had a small black and white television back then. These days any doctor who performed a cesarean eviction would have to make a much larger incision just to get that 55 inch, flat screen T.V. out. 

Anyway, after the procedure, me and my tiny furnishings were put by the curbside, all slimy and covered in afterbirth. I knew I wasn’t wanted and figured I’d strike out on my own. Life was hard. But I managed to get by for the most part. That is, until now. Now I’m homeless again, and unfortunately, me and all my belongings aren’t gonna fit back into my mother’s uterus. 

But when I think back to that first eviction, I don’t really blame my mother. She was just being proactive. I was gonna be just another big pain in her vagina to deal with. Given how ungrateful kids can be, who can blame her?