And that’s when they threw cucumbers at me.

It was intriguing to me how there was a certain quality all student initiatives had. They felt like a mafia, but they only wanted to air out your goldfish because he looked a little waterlogged. Most people only try that once, but student initiatives seemed to be everywhere on campus. This one was in the only place at the university that mattered, the food court, which made it hard to ignore.

“What’s weighing you down, campus?!” a loud voice shouted over a megaphone. My sandwich shook. Accessibility was a big thing on campus. Maybe they were trying to make their group accessible to the deaf?

“The University is profiting off the transience of our community!” someone yelled. I wasn’t sure what that meant, so I tried to eat my vibrating sandwich.

“I heard people arguing about physics. At a Harvey’s! This University obviously works its students too hard,” someone else added.

Arguing about physics? That I really couldn’t ignore. I walked up to the being holding the megaphone. “What’s the cause, fellow human?” It was best to be cautious and to find common ground when approaching new species, especially if they didn’t know they were different.

“Our research and nitty gritty data shows tremendous impact to our stakeholders.”

I nodded slowly. Not too slowly. Somewhere between confused acquiescence and incensed conspirator. Social cues were hard. “What… kind of impact?”

“To our minds!”

I still didn’t really know what they wanted, so I gave them the best advice I could: “Cucumbers. Cucumbers are great for mental health.” I’d never seen an unhappy person eating a cucumber. I tried to imagine that. I pictured a mime with a very sad face painted on them. It was tragic, but it wasn’t sad. Yep, cucumbers were great.

Another being, this one with a poster that read “WE WANT MORE SERVICES,” stepped up and said, “Students are unhappy on campus and the University isn’t doing anything about it and that’s wrong.” I guess I wouldn’t mind sit-down service in the food court.

The one with the megaphone continued, “There’s something fundamentally wrong with the way the system works because, look, so many students are depressed,” and waved the megaphone over the students trying to eat while people yelled at them. “The University should fix this.”

“I’m depressed because I can’t eat my sandwich,” I said, “what can the university do about that?”

“The fact you HAVE a sandwich is privilege!” one said. Then the other added, “You shouldn’t even be eating one around other people that don’t have a sandwich.”

“But why should the university do anything about the sandwichless?” I had to open my big mouth.

“The University should fix everything! If they don’t… I can’t even! If you can’t understand that, you shouldn’t go here.”

“You can’t tell me what you want, and I don’t want anything, so why are you getting mad at me?” Not for the first time I wished I hadn’t tried to understand.

“You can’t question EDUCATION,” the first said. “Everyone needs EDUCATION,” agreed the second. Or was it déjà vu? Either way, the difference between university and education was not a fun conversation to have, let me tell you — hey, where are you going?

A quiet person behind the other two piped up and said, “It weighs on me when my value is based on my degree.”

“You could try being a nerd,” I said. “They seem happy.”

And that’s when they threw cucumbers at me.