Lost to the ages but clear in my memory is a news story about a Midwestern family with a broken refrigerator. They couldn’t afford a new one, so their church friends came together to raise money for a replacement. This early example of crowdfunding worked: Everyone pitched in, working-class parents gave their hard-earned pay, their kids scraped the last coins out of their piggy banks, and in the end they raised just enough for a new appliance. But the family spent the money on a Disney vacation instead.
I have long struggled with this tale of a family that wronged its community. I recognize that taking charity and using it for something other than its intended purpose is at least flagrantly dishonest, and possibly criminal. GoFundMe has a whole fraud division devoted to ferreting out this kind of thing. At the time, I asked my law school friend for her reaction. “Fuck them,” she said. “They should spend the next five years eating warm cheese sandwiches.” No doubt there are many who would recommend harsher measures: Kick the parents out of the church, take the kids away, whip them in the streets, crucify them in the town square. But despite my gift for outrage, I can’t get mad about it.
Two decades on, I am preparing my own family’s pilgrimage to Disney World. I’m excited. Even to a hardened cynic, the place is paradise. Think of it in the abstract: Thousands of acres devoted solely to human pleasure. You spend all day moving from one gloriously fun thing to another. Parades happen…
