Well I started out today waking up and thinking it was Friday, and it’s only Thursday, so I will admit I am cranky.

 But then I saw this thing on my Facebook wall – another YOU MUST BUY something pink thing, and well, is it November yet?

Forget about every day expenses, how am I supposed to be paying for the costs associated with breast cancer treatment and with being a breast cancer survivor who will have years of very close maintenance and meds and tests for years to come?  I am funding my own Breast Cancer Mardi Gras (you know, flashing the rack for co-pays, not beads), so no offense, but charity begins at home.   And I am so jaded on all this by almost the end of Pinktober anyway.

Pure Barre is a women’s fitness place – a franchise opportunity.   So they opened one in Wayne apparently in the shopping mall formerly known as Spread Eagle Village (it took a couple of decades but they finally got the implication and changed it to a more friendly title of  Eagle Village Shops.)

So they want you to buy a pink tank top? They turned their website pink for October? (Sheesh technically my blog is pink every day because I like my azalea photo as a background.)  Well I checked their blog and I checked the charity section of their website and can’t see what charity they are donating to.  Sorry but this month that has been a big screaming pink buy this and that and when you don’t see where proceeds are definitively going to, it’s really irritating.

The buy pink everything is bad enough, but in my opinion it’s PR101 that if this Pink Barre place is going to put it out there they are supporting breast cancer, they should say “proceeds of this tank will go to X charity.”

But that is not how this is translating.  There is also say they are partnering with Splits59 which seems to manufacture fitness apparel? Now Splits59 says on THEIR website the proceeds of the sale of this tank will benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  One teeny detail?  Splits59 says 10% of the sales of this sale will go towards the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  See what I mean?  Pink Barre says 100% profits will be donated to the “cause” and Splits59 says 10%, and somewhere between the two lies the truth. 

My opinion is it’s a $48 tank top that doesn’t even seem like it has a shelf bra and it has the irritating “suggested” wearing of showing my support for the fight against breast cancer gets a pass. 

Why does that bother me?

Because to  imply that I as a breast cancer survivor do not support the fight against breast cancer unless I spend lots of money on pink crap I will never wear and that I am NOT showing support unless I buy these products is  offensive.  What the hell do they think women like myself write about this  disease and experience for?  Because we have nothing better to do?  We aren’t just writing this for ourselves and out loved ones but for the others out there going through this and those yet to come.  That is but one way we contribute.  I also think it’s wrong to guilt people into buying things they might not be able to afford.  Breast Cancer ain’t cheap.

If say Pink Barre was going to offer women going through breast cancer and those who were survivors a couple of complimentary fitness classes during October, with then say also offering a percentage of proceeds to a breast cancer charity if they then signed up or bought a t-shirt or something after, well THAT would be something I would think was pretty cool.  But that is not what I see – I see a pitch to buy a tank top at the end of October.

Pink Barre and Splits59 in my opinion don’t need us to join any fight, but they seem like they want us to spend money.  Well when they line up to pay my health insurance premiums or spot me a few co-pays, I will consider it.  But right now, the reality of life is my most inexpensive co-pay is $50, so when it comes to paying that and buying a $48 tank top, what do you think I am going to choose?

In other news, full steam ahead with monitoring on the Tamoxifen.  Menopause here I come…

 I will step off my soap box in a lady-like manner now.   We the survivors of breast cancer are beautiful without pink crap.  Remember that.

No pink plastic crap was harmed in the writing of this post.