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The Dartmouth
November 23, 2024 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Popping the Bubble

Okay, so I'm about to present a list of what I consider to be The Rudest Behavior On Campus, but I'm also kind of hesitating because I feel like by doing that, I'm implicitly self-calling myself as some kind of bastion of etiquette and politeness.

And everyone who actually knows me just wet their pants laughing at that implication, because if you spend a lot of time vacillating between total decaffeination and epic hyper-cracked-out-wooo-crunchy-bunnies as I do, you're going to accidentally tick some people off. (I'd like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to the schmob of prospies I plowed through while sprinting to turn in a paper last Friday. My bad.) If pressed, I would say that my greatest offense is my tendency to be about 7 minutes late to my entire life, which is actually really really rude in that I-am-more-important-than-you-are kind of way if I had been born before text messaging and the ability to send the person I am supposed to be meeting a lame assurance that I am actually going to show up, I would probably have zero lunch dates and zero friends. As it is, my phone automatically suggests "I'monmywayIpromisesorry" as a word. Fail.

Now that I've implicated myself sufficiently (I have a word limit, trust me, I could have kept going) it's time to turn to some other egregious crimes perpetrated on these campus. I've stewed about them silently for a long time, but now it's my senior Spring (lah lah lah STILL can't hear you) and I've had enough. I might start enacting my own punishments for them. This is your official warning. Pay attention.

  1. The offense: Settling down in Sanborn with a friend or A STUDY GROUP and having a conversation. At full volume. While the ENTIRE ROOM glares at you. How do you not notice that the loudest thing in that place is someone aggressively chewing their gum? When I was a freshman, I made the mistake of eating an apple and the girl in the opposite alcove gave me a Look of Death so hard that I took my crunchy local fruit and fled. How people don't feel the palpable tension of an entire room silently praying for them to develop acute laryngitis is beyond me.

Penalty: Drunk people will be assigned to storm down your hallway at 4 a.m. the next night before you have a midterm.

  1. The offense: Not stopping your car for people in the crosswalk on West Wheelock Street. I live at Sigma Delt, so in order to return to my natural habitat of Collis each day, I have to cross the street. As it takes approximately 30 years for the lights at the corner to change, the town of Hanover has thoughtfully provided an additional crosswalk earlier up the road. In every other place in Hanover, even where there are no crosswalks, the drivers practice their slightly-bizarre form of small-town etiquette and stop for literally every pedestrian that they see coming even if it would be infinitely more efficient for the car to just KEEP going. (I think they enjoy seeing people awkwardly hesitate and then wave at them as they cross in front of the car.) I have a theory, however, that this crosswalk is an as-yet-undiscovered Bermuda triangle that sucks up all the happy rural politeness. No one. EVER. Stops. Three hours later someone will be nice and let me cross, which usually guilts the person traveling in the opposite direction to ALSO stop, but no, some people just keep on barreling along, forcing me to leap back into the relative safety of the double yellow line. PSA: That wasn't a "goodbye" wave in your car's direction.

Penalty: Forfeit your car and travel exclusively by Heelys.

  1. The offense: Using the tongs to pick up and inspect EVERY single chicken finger in a fresh batch at Late Nite while 437 people are waiting behind you. It's okay if you accidentally take one that's half a centimeter shorter than another, I swear.

Penalty: Restriction from all late nite food except for "fried broccoli and cheese bites."

  1. The offense: Not respecting someone's claim to a study room. I'm not saying it's okay to put a single piece of paper on a table and leave for three hours (Hi Jen!) but if someone you don't know is in a room, by themselves, it is not actually okay to join them. Why would you want to be shut up in a room with someone who you DON'T KNOW while deliberately not speaking because you are studying? CRAZY AWK.

Penalty: I would think that BEING IN SUCH AN AWKWARD SITUATION is enough, but apparently you're immune. So I'll be crashing your dorm, using your desk to study and acting nonchalant when you walk in.

  1. The offense: Positioning yourself in front of the coffee dispensers in Collis so that you not only block all three pots, but also the cups. Extra points if it's 9:55 a.m. Bottom line, if you get between me and my caffeine, I refuse to be responsible for my actions. MOVE IT.

Penalty: Being locked in a room with me after I've chugged the 20 ounces of coffee. Be afraid.


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