There are two kinds of clipboards. The kind my boyfriend likes using to
interview celebrities and festival goers, which attract 5-minute
fame-seekers like free money, and the kind I've been issued for my new
temporary job, which makes even grown men jump into traffic-heavy
streets to avoid me.

That's the power I wield.

Since I have to work a student job for modest pay to stay afloat, despite
having first graduated in the not-so-auspicious year 2000, until I find
something better (wish me luck with my phone interview tomorrow), I
suppose it's fortunate to have found one that comes with a superpower.

Given the choice, I'd have gone for the ability to fly, or to speak and
understand every language of the world, but the power of repulsion is
fascinating all the same.

Each morning in the blustery streets of London, I don a bright blue T-shirt emblazoned with UNICEF across my
chest, hang the laurel of my ID badge around my neck, and tuck my
clipboard as discreetly as possible under my arm, and become my
alter-ego: The Bane of Your Existence.

I am a charity fundraiser for United Nations Children's Fund. And I am loathed.

Here,
street fundraisers are also known as 'chuggers', short for 'charity
muggers', and to be sure, some have earned the slander. I've been
backed up against a post box, desperate for escape from an aggressive,
toothy street fundraiser, and that's never made me sign up for
anything. But my company has a strict no guilt, no pressure, no
cornering and absolutely no flirting policy, so I have to use charm and
logic to counter my unfortunate superpower, and that's really hard work
in a city known for little eye contact or warmth of any kind.

So
like a monkey, I dance. My sister calls it 'the dork dance', and it's
the only thing I've come up with that makes even busy Londoners smile,
even those who just really want to rant about charities overdoing their
fundraising, the Credit Crunch, inept children who refuse to move out,
student loans, medical bills, wives and husbands, having been declared
legally insane, Gordon Brown, immigration, unwanted pregnancy and
conspiracy theories. I haven't heard it all, but I expect I will by the
end of today when I finish another shift at Brighton Pier.

Sure
I look like an idiot, but amid the flow of thousands of people, I can
easily slip into the shell of merciful anonymity - anonymity being
London's only guarantee.

Thinking back to my early years
studying Cultural Anthropology, as far as observation goes, I'm in a
really good position. With license to speak to anyone, any trace of a
stereotype I'd brought along was blown to bits in the first hour,
though I'll admit seedlings of new ones are taking their place. Women,
for example, can be very scary people. Old people aren't necessarily
nice people. Saying 'good morning' is just as likely to receive a Big F
as a 'good morning' in return. And the average Londoner is a terrible
actor.

Just as I spot prospective donors 5 metres away, they
spot me. Commonly, they'll pull a mobile phone out and fake a
conversation, without bothering to turn it on. I'm both flattered that
they'll go to so much effort to avoid having me say 'hello', and
offended they think my powers of observation are so weak. In quieter
areas, my presence parts the sea of pedestrians. They'll climb over
bicycles, squeeze around lamp posts and dodge traffic to avoid me.

And then there are the runners.

While
there are fewer, they're the best. These maintain composure until the
very last moment, and then sprint just a little way. Just enough to get
past me. Sometimes I feel like the oracle from that children's movie
The Neverending Story, wondering, maybe even hoping I really might be
able to zap those not true of heart with my laser eyes.

Some
choose partial blindness and simply close their eyes while they walk
past me. "I can still see you," I say with the same lilt I use when I
play hide-and-seek with children who haven't quite figured out that you
need to hide your whole body, and not just your head.

Others
simply unload. They see my smile and 'hello' as an invitation to vent
all their frustrations and disturbingly common racist views, and while
I understand how this might happen when dealing with the general
public, "F*ck you!' never really feels like an acceptable response to
'good morning', no matter what I might be wearing.

So,
thankfully it's Friday, and I can come home and relax with all the
reasons I have for enduring this sort of treatment: Friends, love and a
new, albeit challenging, life in London.

That, and the fact that UNICEF really does do good work for children.

Read more at All Over the Place (Montreal to London)