Lets face it: I'm a wanderer. I linger too long, I forget important things, and I stick around in random places. Tonight I landed myself in my favorite coffee shop (favorite because their ginger-peach tea is the best I've ever had and they also host our beloved Poetry-Reading-Thursdays) and found myself in one of those situations where you are just embarrassed to be a member of the human race. You'll know what I mean. I sat silently on nearby couch as I watched 3 less-than-comfortable-with-themselves humans say the most disappointing things a human could say. I don't mind cursing, that's fine, we're all mostly immune anyway. I can stomach the obscenities. I can block out the vulgarities. But I cannot sit comfortably while I listen to strangers shamelessly revel in the suffering of another. It is torture. There were two boys and one girl involved in this conversation. I heard plenty of their meaningless, boisterous conversation but one line screeched into my ears like nails on a chalkboard, "Oh, I hate her too, she broke her nose in front of everyone once and she was bawling for hours, best day of my life." Best day of my life? I felt sick. The day of your wedding, your junior prom, your graduation, those are the sort of best-days one might expect to hear; but how can a person, a respectable-looking woman, honestly say that the best day of her life was at the painful expense of another? I cringed instinctively. I wrinkled my nose the way I do when I have the utmost contempt for something. I know, (I hope) she didn't mean this, but regardless, how does a person get to this point? It got worse, the 4th addition came, another girl. I watched the boys at their table looked at me sympathetically, as if to say "I'm incredibly embarrassed you're hearing them say these things, I promise I'm not this terrible." Their embarrassment resembled the sort of discomfort you feel when inappropriate content begins playing on the movie you chose for your family to watch- guilt by association- and no way out. I watched them remain silent as these girls knavishly destroyed every person they could think to hate, for reasons ranging from "she's a cheerleader" to "she needs to wear more make up" they openly admitted their hate for people on this basis. It was easily the most shallow conversation I have ever heard, heaven forbid someone say something genuinely beautiful. What's more, I watched as these girls reveled in their own words, shameless, speaking profanities as if they thought they had something to prove. In some attempt to make themselves seem more appealing. Tonight, tonight is one of those nights. One of those nights that leaves me empty, drained, void of hope for humanity. Tonight I wish I could disappear. How could I possibly have had it in my head that things were changing.