Pinecones 

Hey Stinky,

My cousin Aster visited the other day. I gave him a good tour of the campus, but something put me off. I do admit that he has a social gut that can take a few punches, and we mess with people; however, I found that people had been unconditionally rude. 

On the first day he got here, we were walking down the street when he asked a random guy if they had heard of a Montgomery guy. The group just kinda brushed him off rudely. I do admit that I had lost control at that initially. I turned around, pointed at them, and yelled, “Forget about them. They are a bunch of losers!” After that, I did a 180 and called Aster over with a wave of my hand. After the interaction, I told him about the goose jacket people. I can’t stand when there is injustice or wrong. Though Ann Arbor is straight-laced, he got a lot of responses like that more than usual. At the museums, concerts, and wherever we went. At a certain point, he started to feel as if the people around him were judging him harshly. I didn’t have any excuses or ways to console him. 

The situation that took the cake was when Aster, McD, and I were walking through Dana, the environmental building. We were messing around a bit. I took them to my favorite study spot on the fourth floor where I wanted to show them the sun roof. On each end were odd offices with no way to know if they were being used. I popped my head in both only to be met with confused glares and laughter. It was actually a nice experience. We went out of the lounge and Aster used a Sanitizer dispenser that probably hadn't been used for a millennia. The spout had rock-hard-crusted material that made the sanitizer shotgun onto the wall. The stream had so much pressure that the highest point the liquid hit was about two feet above the spout. 

Finally, I guided them to a display case that I wanted to show off. Since I am allergic to pine nuts, one of my favorite things was to show the pinecone collection. As we walked down the hall with inside voices, some kid walked up to us and quickly slammed the door of a classroom about thirty feet from us. It was unexpected so I started giggling. I looked at Aster and McD and we all started giggling uncontrollably. Each time I would look up at the other, I would giggle harder. For about a minute, we were trying to catch our breaths, just for me to start another chain reaction. It was just too funny and I couldn’t contain myself. It was 6:00 in the afternoon, and we just finished eating. There was no way I expected some kid in a stupid plant club to do that. We weren’t even being loud or loitering.

A moment after we stopped giggling, Some kid opened the door. We were dead quiet and she contorted her brows to ask, “Are you going to stop?” She put her hand on the doorknob in an overhand grip as if she were finishing a full-body pull-up, something along those lines. At first, I was confused so I tried to be respectful. I responded, “Yeah.” 

She opened her eyes wide as if she was trying to intimidate three tall guys all about two or three times her weight and snarked, “Can you leave?” 

We were planning on leaving anyway so I quickly responded, “Yes.” She opened the door wider, took a step towards us, and stated, “Can I watch you actively leave?”

I said, “No.”