I’m not from the South — at least, not in the debutante, sweet tea and rocking chair on the front porch kind of way. But I’m going to embrace my upbringing 100 miles below the Mason-Dixon Line for the next 300 words, because the state of door-holding at the University of Pennsylvania is atrocious.

I’m talking to you, Mr. Caffeine Headache at WaWa — your throbbing skull is obviously obscuring the part of your brain that deals with etiquette.

I’m looking at you, Ms. OCR with the interview that started five minutes ago — your preoccupation with finance facts makes it difficult to be courteous.

And don’t think you are exempt either, Kid Mumbling to Himself on Woodland Walk — your academically-induced nervous breakdown apparently makes it impossible for you to be considerate.

But please know that taking two seconds to look behind you and see if anyone is coming after you have so successfully cleared the entrance is not going to cause you to lose consciousness due to lack of chemical stimulant, doom you to summer unemployment or make you fail Bio 101.

Although when your door slams in my face I’m sure hoping it does.

It’s not cute or funny to creep through the door at the last second so I just miss it. It’s not okay to glance over your shoulder, see someone coming, and then let the door go. Hitting the handicap button is a copout (unless you’re handicapped), as if somehow it’s the door timer’s fault that you made it through and I didn’t.

I’m not on any kind of crusade.  I’m not going to scream “THANKS A LOT!” after you and your coffee/suit/brain clear the door and I’m left in the wind tunnel.  I’m just asking you to please hold the door.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.