Can THIS.

An old adage advises that no good deed goes unpunished.

Well, I hold the firm belief that the above statement is categorically true, and therefore strive to avoid good deeds whenever humanly possible.

Through elementary school my family was forced to stuff themselves with the pizzas I wouldn’t sell and the chocolate I refused to peddle to unsuspecting neighbors. Dreams of first-place awards and shiny new bicycles couldn’t budge me from my impassioned anti-fundraiser stance.

At 12 I spent two hours volunteering at the Pasco Humane Society, finally leaving in tears, smelling like cat urine and vowing never to return to the shack of hopeless canines.

Once I helped my elder sister on a particularly grueling babysitting charge, only to break the front tree swing and run home before the residents cast their blame on me.

High School brought with it afternoons of Special Olympics, the warm feeling of selfless volunteering not enough to make up for the shame of having a lower bowling score than the average special Olympian.

Denying every instinct that coursed through my body, and hoping to experience this “warm feeling” I had heard spoken of so often, last night I agreed to collect cans for a local food bank.

I shivered the entire time.

I was never cut out for door-to-door solicitations nor do-gooding in general. After five houses my partners’ bags were laden with aluminum goodness, while mine sat folded in my hand.

Ignoring warnings of my own social awkwardness, a co-gooder pushed me toward the front door of the next house.

I was immediately caught off guard when the man, who had been peacefully watching TV just moments before, gave me an expectant, annoyed and silent stare.

“Um, cans,” I blurted out, holding my empty paper bag open for him to see. “There’s this food drive. We want cans. Have you any?”

“No,” he said, a tad more matter-of-factly than I thought was socially acceptable when solicited to help the poor.

“None?” I asked, uncommonly eager to match the filling bags around me.

“No.”

I glumly left the doorstep, wondering if the poor man might benefit from some of the food we had already collected.

Four houses later and my turn was again up. With a perpetually-empty bag and the resolve to feed the starving, I tried again.

“We want cans, for hungry people. Do you like being hungry?”

The approach worked, and I had my first – and last – success of the night.

Tart cherries, canned salmon and sugar substitute filled the bag I held smugly as I shivered in the October evening.

Visions of sugar-free cherry pies and golden brown salmon cakes whisked through my mind as I trotted across the street to the perspective goldmine of top ramen, canned pumpkin and pork ‘n beans in the houses to follow.

My deed was immediately punished.

The headlights of the oncoming traffic shocked me just as I heard my paper bag tear, the contents of which rolled swiftly to various locations of 17th East.

The line of four cars waiting patiently while I scrambled across the street, gathering cans and boxes, all the while keeping the thoughts of disappointed starving people at bay in my mind.

The glowing sense of being selfless? Perhaps I’ll warm up to it.

For now, this is one can I’d like to kick.