He looked at her and hoped he wasn’t making a face.

She stood on his doorstep young and determined, maybe 19, maybe older, it was hard to tell at that age. She held tight to her clipboard as she quickly ran through her spiel – most of it memorized – before standing quietly and waiting for him to respond.

He hated opening his door for this exact reason.

Ninety-eight percent of the people who wanted him to sign something or join something rarely reflected his personal views. Instead of signing or buying he was often more inspired to give them a good piece of his mind – to help clarify the error of their ways. This time was no different, but he held himself to silence.

She spoke of outrage, but he didn’t see it. He read about the situation himself and at the time he found himself shaking his head, “This is what people are ‘outraged’ over?”

She was clearly moved to action, but it was an action that would result in disappointment for her. The ‘outrage’ was not going to change the magazine cover, or help keep prayer in school or whatever other trivial thing that seems to put a thorn in humanity’s paw for a hot second.

She was a clean cut suburban kid who may be having her first full taste of social outrage. There were so many more things more worthy of her efforts that should not only generate true rage, but make you physically ill once you really understood the depth of the problem. Yet here she was with her petition and her determination. The last true rage she felt was probably aimed at her parents. She’d likely have better luck with a petition about that.