“Lois,

…when you speak of Mr. Draper, I want you to imagine that he’s standing right behind you.”       -Peggy Olson, “Mad Men”

*

James Madison University is an institution I know little about. After sitting in a coffee shop next to three of its female students today, I wish I knew a lot less.  At my table by the window, I clicked my mouse, preparing drawings for a client. A seasoned Starbucks squatter, I normally thrive on the din of conversation while I work. But the students’ gossip about their acquaintances curdled the milk in my tea. Boasts, cackles and judgments intermittently flew past my ears like shrapnel.

“So I said, ‘Oh, yeah?  Listen, baby, I like, lived in London before I came to JMU!’  And that was IT. I was having him.”

“Last summer I worked with some people from Afghanistan, and you know how they look.  I couldn’t understand what they were saying. It creeped me out.”

(Note: I’m relaying only PG-13 soundbytes so my blog won’t be overrun with spam).

Live and let live, I thought. Be the change you want to see in the world. Remember these girls were once babes in their mothers’ arms.

Then they crossed me.

A father came in with his son, who looked about nine years old. The man was dressed in work clothes, his son on break from school. I pictured my own children, who were with my husband for a few hours as part of our holiday childcare do-si-do.

The man was in a hurry. He poured some milk into his coffee, then pushed down too hard when he replaced the lid. The cup shot off the counter. Several airborne ounces soaked his son’s shirt. The rest splattered far and wide across the floor.

Don’t you dare, I thought, glaring at the students.

The boy wasn’t burned. Barristas swooped in and mopped the floor. “I’ll make you another,” one of them offered. Minutes later, the man, his son, and the spill were gone.

“That guy was showing his coffee some LOVE. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!”

What I wanted to say was:

“You’ve squandered more leisure time since you got here than that man’s probably had in the last nine years.”

I didn’t, though. If I learned anything in the hall bathroom of Highland Middle School, it was this: don’t be an idiot. The girls were more muscular and numerous than I. They were mean, and they were young. The former was their responsibility, but not the latter. Life is better at grinding down sharp edges than any line I might hone at Starbucks. My (remote) hope is that they’ll find this post someday.

“Integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody’s looking.”  Sam Wegert, my family’s karate instructor, explained this facet of “black belt attitude” during class two hours after I left the JMU girls with their lattes. At twenty-one, Mr. Wegert’s a third-degree black-belt, owns several karate studios, and is one of the most upstanding people I know. Which blows the youth-excuse in my last paragraph all to Hell.

Why are some people mean? Of all the questions my children ask, this is the hardest to answer. If my five-year-old needs a one-minute version of the birds and the bees, war, religion, death, or even inappropriate touch, I’m good. But when it comes to why people are cruel, I’m stumped. I know there are explanations (childhood trauma, addiction, mental illness), but day-to-day, it remains a code I can’t decipher. So I rely on a host of translators. Peggy Olson, Mr. Wegert, and my friend Ted, who says, simply, in his Southern lilt:

“Love is as love does.”

Titian, "Madonna and Child"