Oh god no. They’re stationary. They have clipboards and dreadlocks and it’s… oh no. Not Green Peace. Anything but Green Peace. They… they’ve locked on to you. They know you care about the environment. Run, run, run, get out of there man! You don’t have time. Don’t let…
HEY, HEY YOU. Do you hate whales? Did you know that orangutans are forced to put together iPhones for twenty hours straight? If you could save a baby penguin from being chopped up and used as chum for McDonald’s hamburgers, wouldn’t you? All it takes is ten minutes of your time. Why won’t you talk to me, you insensitive awful person? THE SUMATRAN ELEPHANT DEMANDS YOUR ATTENTION.
Oh god, don’t look in their eyes, don’t, don’t… oh damn, you looked in their eyes. The soul is in the eyes, man. This is way too much soul to handle. It’s too much goodness, too much raw, unfiltered optimism and youth and environmentally-conscious brightness. You’re caving.
Okay, just keep walking. Ignore them. Under no circumstances should you engage them in conversation. But they look so interesting, like they spend time debating which incense to buy, like they harvest organic tomatoes and sort through recyclable plastic in their dreams. And they dress like a homeless person—but not in a knifey sort of way… more like a Jesus, torn-jeans, maple-syrup-harvester from Vermont way.
Well, now you’re talking to them. One minute, you’re going to grab a coffee and read the newspaper, but now you’re responsible for dead owls and rhinos without horns and depressed monkeys. Shit. Okay, they’re talking about a beetle… a Sacramento beetle that’s on its last legs? His name’s Fred or Mark or something, and he’s not doing so well. Apparently, it’s hard to get by on eight bucks an hour when your wife is pregnant with five hundred and sixty kids and you live in a pile of dirt.
What if you ran away? Just book it. They don’t support guns, so the worst they can do is throw an organic orange at you, which isn’t all that bad considering their protein-starved arm muscles. Or they could support legislation to make you change all of your lightbulbs… which might be worse?