NAOMI LYNCH
Staff Writer
Dear Blatant Mid-Semester Seat Stealer,
You’d be an excellent dictator, since you’re so adept at taking what you want.
You’d also be a excellent dictator, because you were born to fall!
This is not only a letter to you, but a PSA to all of you mid-semester seat stealers. Don’t bother looking around in faux confusion — you know I am talking to you!
Sure, for the first few classes, no one really knows where to sit.
We are:
a. figuring out how close we want to be to the exit in case of fire or demonic fart
b. scoping out who smells like crap so we can stay the hell away from them
c. searching for the know-it-alls, so you can create distance when their hand flies up for every question
d. hunting for the perfect nap seat in case we watch archaic black-and-white foreign films about cheese
Somehow, in all that chaos, we find a place to sit, and, although there are no official rules about where to sit, THAT IS WHERE YOU SIT. Eventually, when professors take attendance and ask questions, they look in your direction when they hear your voice, because they tend to expect to see you there.
Everyone in the class knows that’s where you sit. No one sits there. Even if you are absent. They respect the rules of the seat.
Except, y’know, the mid-semester seat stealers.
Those infernal folk who scope out your seat for their own greedy pleasure.
The dastardly dudes who think that America’s Classroom is about democracy and crap.
They take your seat … and the terror begins.
It starts off slow, though. Since you’re weeks into the semester, it wouldn’t occur to you to fight for your seat, right? As you approach your seat and see one of Satan’s children sitting there comfortably, you don’t feel like fighting today. Maybe this person rushed in and didn’t realize where they were sitting, y’know? So you scoot by, and take the closest seat.
Next class, it’s the same thing, and a slow terror seizes your fatigued body — this person may be intentionally taking my seat.
By the third class, you’re staring into their pitch-black eyes while the warrior within you rises and roars “IT
IS TIME TO FIGHT FOR YOUR GLORY!”
Don’t think, “well, maybe it isn’t worth it … ”
DAMN RIGHT IT’S WORTH IT!
You pay nearly twenty grand to keep that seat warm two to three times a week — you’d better fight for it!
Do you even realize the repercussions of your seat-stealing?
Now I have to take someone else’s seat, and that person will take someone else’s seat, who then takes someone ELSE’s seat…see what you’ve started? You’ve demolished the ecosystem, Seat-Stealer.
Can you comprehend the pain I feel when little Johnny looks at me with his big chocolate eyes, lamenting
“Why, Naomi? Why did you take my seat?”
Do you know what happens to a dysfunctional ecosystem, Seat-Stealer?
WE ALL FLIPPIN’ DIE.
So, Blatant Mid-Semester Seat Stealers, here’s my message to you:
I, my bespectacled, glorious self, see you.
I am fully armored with the spirit of the classroom gods who have appointed me to end your fiendish ways.
I give you one of two options: go back to your seat, and there’ll be no problem.
If you refuse, well … I hope you’re ready to fight to the death for this.
Without any further ado …
EN GARDE!
How to establish dominance over your seat-stealer:
1. arrive to class early
If you have enough free time, arrive to class two weeks early and camp out there. Bring snacks.
2. pee on your seat
Dogs do it so other dogs know that they’ve peed there. If you’re a woman, this may prove to be a little difficult, but I have faith that once they smell the pee, they’ll get the right idea.
3. yell with the spirit of childhood
Start yelling “The Circle of Life” at the top of your lungs. If they don’t uncomfortably slink away, then you might want to.
4. throw glitter on them while chanting John Mayer lyrics
Glitter is the great equalizer among men and women, for no matter how much you scrub, YOU CAN NEVER GET IT OFF. Make it rain glitter like a sorority girl does during Big/Little Week. No less than five pounds, of course. Start blasting John Mayer’s “Wonderland” and they’ll begin to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. Leave the custodian a nice tip for creating such a mess.
5. summon the great sea monster, Ursula
The instructions are somewhere on Wikipedia, but if I remember correctly, you only need to sacrifice the soul of a hookup or two. Ursula will arrive the day before to review the plan; if she deems that your deed is worthwhile, she will swallow up the seat-stealer as soon as he places his buns in your seat. Don’t explain to anyone why your classmate is gone.