Things I Hate

It's finals studying time. It's the time when I retreat to the stacks in a dark corner of the library, take over an entire zip code's worth of table space, and glare at people that dare to venture my way. It's the time when I have to cram an entire 15 weeks worth of class lectures into my head, then spit it all back out on a 3 hour exam. The grade I get on this exam is the only grade I get for the class. And it's curved.

I'm an easy going guy (some would say... pleasant), but not during finals time. Which brings me to the things I hate.

1. Flip-Flops.
I get it. You want to be cool. You live near the beach. You don't like tying shoes. That's great. The problem is, those overprice shards of foam attached to your feet make a *thwack* sound with every step. Every step. I can hear you start my way from the other end of the building, slowly getting closer and louder. With every step, a small penny nail is being pounded into the base of my skull. When you finally get to me, what do you know! No places to sit. That's because you slept in until 11 am, and didn't want to wait until 11:01 to get out the door, so you decided to attach noisemakers to your feet to rush to the library. Good for you.


2. Incessant Sniffing.
I had a guy sit at the table next to mine (I can't claim both, I've tried) and strategically place his nose exactly 6 feet away from my ear. He then showed me how he can keep perfect time through the act of sniffing. Every 5 seconds, SNIIIIIIIIIIFFF. Even after I made a huge display of putting in my earplugs, it was clear that this human metronome was unstoppable. I actually turned and made direct, prolonged eye-contact with the guy. That successfully slowed the sniffing frequency to once every 30 seconds. Believe it or not, that was worse. Just when I had relaxed my death grip on my notes and lowered my shoulders from the top of my ears... SNIIIIIIIIIIIIFFF. I was about to politely ask the guy if I could shove a couple of flip-flops up each nostril, but he got up and left. I stopped him and asked him if he wanted to sneeze on my face before he left, but only in my head.