It’s one thing to become irate when you’re trying to drive to campus when the knucklehead in front of you sits at a green light because they’re blabbing on the phone. What about when you’re walking around campus and the person you’re holding a door for won’t hurry up because they’re also on the phone checking something on Facebook? Well, one day on the way to the DUC I noticed a few students walking and texting at the same time. It was a beautiful early fall day, the sun was shining, and the sky was blue with soft clouds appearing every so often. These students, however, were too preoccupied squinting at their small plastic screens and stumbling around campus like someone leaving a late night tavern. As I passed through the main entrance of the DUC, a dark-haired male student passed by me with his phone attached cockeyed to his ear. It really wasn’t the fact that he was talking on the phone that caught my attention, but the overwhelmingly loud tone he was using as he reminded his mother not to throw away his lucky underwear because he planned on grabbing them up when he came home for the holidays. Some things just don’t need to be overheard. I took a seat at one of the tables near the back, close to the fountain drinks, where I could get some work done and get a closer view of this monkey business. In passing, I asked senior Adee Heiman what she thought about the whole idea, and she just quaintly replied that it really wasn’t that big of a deal.

After about an hour of studying and catching glimpses of the text, talk and walks, I began to appreciate how hard it was for people to use their phones and walk at the same time. If they added bubble gum to the mix we would’ve probably needed an ambulance. A few people did display an elegant swagger to talking and texting while they traveled throughout the building, but they were the minority. A few phone pros really didn’t compare to the ones that looked like a bull in a china shop. One young male, who was texting as he got up from his table, clumsily tipped over his coffee. Another girl answered her phone, started digging through her purse and knocked over her books. But the best one occurred when I was getting up to grab a drink. A very tall slender girl was walking at a fast pace from the area of the DUC were the food trays get dropped off. She was texting on her phone with her head down, and before anyone knew it she had crossed through the maze of scattered chairs and tables and walked smack dab into the side of the wall near the bathrooms and dropped everything she was carrying, including herself. She was scuffed up a little, but the meeting between her and the wall really wasn’t that bad. She gazed around the room with the embarrassed look that someone has when they walk into a wall, if there is such a look. So I guess it’s okay for people to be allowed to text and talk on their phones. However, it would be entertaining if they were forced to run while they do it. This way at least the rest of us who are annoyed by them can now be entertained when they crash into things.