Hallway Speed Bumps

By Anna-Maria Thalassinos

There’s only a minute left until the bell rings, and you’re nowhere near your classroom. You aren’t running late because you spent the other four minutes talking to your friends about the latest gossip heard the period before, but rather due to the slow walkers who saunter aimlessly down the halls of UAHS.

When dealing with a slow walker, there are two options most people do. One, is to maneuver your way around them with an annoyed look on your face. The second option, is to simply just impatiently walk behind them in hopes they start to walk at a normal pace.

Those two options are commonly used because they are the civil, and appropriate, ways to handle this type of situation. But sometimes enough is enough and you can’t handle one more thing not going your way. There are two other options that might be even more effective. The first option is to push and shove your way past them. Second, while you push them away, yell at them to actually use their legs and move at a decent pace next time.

Now, before we get too ahead of ourselves and start yelling like a maniac, let’s examine the “typical” slow walker within the halls of UAHS. We all can immediately think of the squealing girls who enjoy stopping in the middle of the hallway, cutting you off, to get an important recap of that “funny”, but probably stupid, thing the “hottest boy” in math class said. Who knows what would happen if “Lil’ Miss Squealer” didn’t hear all that valuable information. I mean, what else would her brain be filled with, knowledge?

Then we have the cliques of friends who enjoy walking four or five abreast, taking up the whole hallway, and taking five hours to walk to lunch. Would it be that difficult to walk in two, or maybe three rows, or would that mean they would become, dare I say it, less self-absorbed?

We all can name at least ten people who obnoxiously scream on the phone and text in the hallways, incapable of doing two things at once. Have they ever stopped and realized that maybe the person on the other end of the phone can’t hear them because they are in the middle of a thousand students trying to get to their next class?

Then there’s the typical “cutest couple ever”, for the week of course. Regardless, it’s hard to walk through the school in the morning, or between classes, and not see two students groping each other. When they walk in the halls, though, “the best couple ever”, who are bound to break up within the next week or two like most high school relationships, hold each other’s hands in the halls in an unbreakable grasp.

Last, but certainly not least, there are the huge, hulking guys who take their precious time walking from class to class, because they are just so important, no one can miss them. Even though they are grand in size, they are far from grandiose.

Here’s a message to all of these types of slow walkers: Dear Slow walkers, walking as if you can’t possibly go any slower doesn’t make you look cool or important, you just become annoying. Sincerely, Every other student at UAHS.