i was in the grocery store and saw an onion on the ground and picked it up, absently saying “poor little guy.” behind me a teenage girl started laughing and then stopped and went “aww. i’m sorry for laughing. that’s nice actually.” and the cycle of cruelty is broken for another generation as a young person realizes that it is not embarrassing to have empathy for another thing that was once living, because certainly to be a lone white onion rolling on the ground in a supermarket would be terrifying to anyone