Let's germinate, shall we?

Seeing as the world got a new pope today and all, I decided tonight would be a good time to get cracking on the new plants. I'm not at all sure I set everything up right -- the instructions on the packets were woefully scanty -- but I'm optimistic nonetheless. I'm eager to see if anything exciting happens in 7-10 days.

Today was our last true lab (next week is the final), which I note with mixed emotions. We examined the fruit flies we'd bred for dominant and recessive traits. Throughout the period I kept thinking, "Recognizes the mutant. Recognizes the mutant." I was already sort of giddy from lack of sleep and other factors, but "recognizes the mutant" launched me over the edge. I'm afraid Ms. Non-trad's instructor and classmates must think she's a giggling half-wit.

After lab I trotted off to the student union to mail something. Along the way I encountered this Trad who was campaigning for a student council nominee. Now, I'm all for student government. While I perhaps rather cynically believe students' voices matter very little to the powers that be, it's nice to see young people caring about something. But this little twerp pissed me off. His first words were, "Ma'am, you don't want a moron running the student council, do you?" Then he spat out something about one of the candidates not knowing jack about student government. "You wouldn't want an idiot running things. That would be just stupid, and you don't want to be stupid, do you?" he said.

I know I probably should have smiled and encouraged his youthful zeal for politics, but I just couldn't. For one thing, he called me "ma'am." And for another, I resented his tone. "A word of advice for you," I said. "Most people don't respond well to being called stupid." I explained to him that while I know he wasn't calling me stupid, some people might take his words differently. "You're better off emphasizing your candidate's strengths instead of slinging mud," I told him. Is that true? *I* don't know, but I simply couldn't help myself. He seemed a little crestfallen when I was through with him. Does this make me a bad person?