Print1. Between the two sets of doors entering Butler.
Your friend is leaving and wants to get to bed as soon as possible. You’re entering and you don’t even have a topic for paper that’s due in twelve hours. Neither person wants to see the other. Plus, the doors weigh two thousand pounds and don’t make any sense, there’s nowhere to stand that doesn’t block one of the doors, so you both have to move awkwardly around in the tiny space, and it’s freezing. Recommended solutions: The automatic handicap door opener alleviates most heavy door issues. You can also carry an iPod and look down.
2. A Westside Market aisle.
Stopping to talk in any one of Westside Market’s Death-Star-trash-chute-sized aisles for more than five seconds backs up the customer flow for about a half an hour. I once stood in the cereal aisle for to marvel at all the different types of Honey Bunches of Oats. Westside had to be closed the next day. Recommended solutions: Research cereal varieties and local milk brands prior to shopping.
3. The area next to Wien under EC.
The result of some terrible architectural error. This space is perpetually shadowy, eerily quiet, and utterly useless, save for creating tremendously awkward social encounters. Interactions tend to be severed as quickly as possible. Thousands of friendships have inexplicably ended with this unfortunate pattern. Recommended solutions: Never live in Wien. Never visit Wien if you live in EC. Never even leave EC if you live in EC.
4. Any bathroom.
There’s really nothing you can do to elevate your coolness for someone you haven’t seen in awhile. Trust me, I’ve tried just about every floss/mouthwash combination available. Recommended solutions: Hide.
5. A Lerner ramp.
A conversation on the ramp must mean that either one of you is standing on elevated ground—establishing a strange superiority-inferiority dynamic that will ultimately result in the destruction of someone’s confidence—or both of you will be off-balance, contributing to physical dizziness, confusion, and general poor health. Recommended solutions: Remain on level ground in Lerner at all times. If, for a dire emergency, you absolutely need to move up or down a ramp, sprint at top speed to avoid social contact.