New Orleans

At a moderately nice restaurant some customers left a large hunk of chocolate cake and an almost untouched scoop of ice cream at a booth near my table. I eyed it and considered swooping for it like Crucial Mike. My apall at waste, my primal appetite, and my carefully calculated budget combine to bring me great pleasure in free food. I've never eaten after strangers though. It remains disappetizing to me. I almost grabbed a Burger King bag out of the trash one night on campus, but I didn't do it either. Stuff goes into the garbage for a reason. I let the cake go, but I did clean up some left over quesadillas from someone in our group. We drove the rest of the way to New Orleans laughing and joking deliriously, at last arriving at a dark and looming church building at almost midnight in a neighborhood that seemed much abandoned. We met Jackie the head coordinator who debriefed us somewhat as to what the next day's schedule would be like, and we were shown our cots. A lady from another group requested politely more than once that we be quiet because people were sleeping after a hard day's work. "After you've worked here a day, you'll understand," she said. I was thinking, if you're so tired, go to sleep.