-Arete, Arete-

Outside the Union, a small number of students crouched in metal cages, earnestly protesting University policy regarding the treatment of animal test subjects. Arguing with one of them is an easy, if unsatisfying task. I asked any number of pertinent questions:
Do you know the state of the monkeys after the research? Might they pose a danger to the populace if they're put on a preserve of some kind?

To her credit, the organizer was content to trade ideas with me. To a point. Than she not-so-subtly extended her hand, palm up, to receive the three paper-weights (ossage oranges) that I had been juggling the entire time.

Inside, sorority sisters and fraternity brothers flounced about like naughty children while harried blood drive staffers collected pints of their feeble blood. These greeks ignored the staffers, and me, too, since I clearly had no affiliation with any organization. I was (god forbid) only there because I wanted to give blood.

It's just another competition/social event for the kiddies - and while I know I'm being unfair, I also know I'd been treated poorly. My gripe for myself is nothing compared to my gripe for the staff, toiling endlessly with good cheer with not a kind word for the efforts; not even when they revive, hover, and dote on a tiny girl who probably lied about her weight (for once toward the heavy side).

Obviously the girl is too dazed to be faulted for not thanking them. Her attendant friends should have, but they would not deign to speak to the help. These are the same students who will go outside to chat up the early-twenties punk trio with the dog. They laugh at the cardboard "Beer Money" sign, and throw disgraceful amounts into the aluminum can. One block away, the actual homeless are shaking within their nightmares and waking deliriums.

"Discuss," I think, but it might well be "disgust."