Scott is a good kid, even though he smokes cigarettes, cusses and is 27 years old. It’s hard not to think of him as a child though because the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome that afflicts him has set his mind permanently around the age of eight or nine.

He was fluttering silently around the outside of Java Jones, bumming cigarettes and engaging in occasional light conversation with the patrons when the troop of baboons arrived at Sam’s to Go next door. They stomped around, hooting and howling so bad you might think they ate a box of razor blades the evening before and now had a nasty bout of diarrhea.

The alpha male, which can easily be identified by his ability to bellow the loudest and procure large quantities of piss-cheap beer, exited Sam’s with a few pitchers for the rest of the primates. They gathered around the plastic jugs and began throwing back glass after glass of the yellow stuff, shouting about finding some “pussy” and getting drunk.

My friend turned to me and made a snide remark about being back in high school. Scott, however, seemed less than humored by the group fewer than 30 feet away. He paced back and forth, muttering in between violent puffs of his cigarette. Whenever the troop let out an especially loud scream, Scott would look up, shake his head and let out a grunt of frustration, sometimes slamming his fist against a table.

Meanwhile, the baboons had shifted their attention from blurring the conscious world around them to finding some suitable mates, suitably defined as a set of breasts, preferably with warm blood still flowing through them. The girls subject to such charming things as whistles and rousing chants of “tits, tits, tits!” giggled nervously and stepped up their pace. Unable to get any of the women to stop, the males decided to masturbate their own egos by challenging each other to do pull-ups on the wooden overhang outside Sam’s.

The residents studying at Java Jones had tucked away their books for the time being and turned to polite conversation, passing the time until the troop had gorged itself and moved on. Scott continued to grow agitated, pacing faster and unable to tear his gaze away from the spectacle. I asked him what was wrong.

“I don’t understand,” Scott said, gesturing to the troop.

My friend and I searched for an answer that Scott would understand when we heard one of the primates start a sentence with, “Dude, when we get back to Davis… ”

It all made sense then. We told Scott that he should go sit inside until they left, that those loud men weren’t from around here. He didn’t, choosing instead to hover around us, his frustration ebbing the more we distracted him with disjointed conversation.

Everybody has the right to have a good time, and this right extends even to our evolutionarily-challenged brethren. But my friend and I weren’t having a good time. Scott surely wasn’t having a good time. The people trying to study, nope, can’t say that they were either, and the girls subjected to catcalls sure as hell weren’t dancing in the streets with joy.

I’m glad those baboons were having fun, but they should realize they aren’t the only animals in the jungle.

Ook. Ook.

Steven Ruszczycky is the Daily Nexus Opinion Editor.