Hateful Things

"One is in a hurry to leave, but one's visitor keeps chattering away. ... Should it be the sort of visitor whose presence commands one's best behavior, the situation is hateful indeed."

-Sei Shonagon, a court lady in 10th-century Japan, from her essay, "Hateful Things."

Someone enters the elevator just as the door is closing and presses the button for the floor just below yours. How hateful!

Someone is walking down the street and sees you approaching. As he is about to pass, he lowers his head and peers into his bag, pretending not to see you.

Dead spots in the Butler wireless network. Nothing ruins your day like plugging in an Ethernet cord.

Campus tour guides who interrupt their tours to say hello to a passing friend. When a tour guide attempts this with me, I loudly thank her for the nickel bag of Bolivian fishscale. I have lost eight friends this way.

Come to think of it, campus tours in general are hateful. Except the one that convinced me to attend Columbia. Since then, it's been four years of slack-jaws with bad haircuts.

People logged onto boredatbutler.com who are clearly neither bored nor at Butler.

Someone is trapped in the inside room of a walk-through double as the sounds of lovemaking emanate from the outside room. Being sexed in! Hateful is an understatement.

Columbia students who complain about lack of community. Have they never heard of the Facebook?

Complaints about the Core Curriculum. Every student knew perfectly well when applying that he would be learning about white guys, Mary Wollstonecraft, and W.E.B. DuBois.

That spinny door at the Broadway entrance to Lerner Hall.

Columbia's draconian lawn policy is hateful; it's as if the school cares more about its appearance than the students' Frisbee skills.

The entire campus is made of marble, so when it rains, students have an 80 percent chance of death.

The corner of 115th and Riverside in winter, when icy gusts peel your face off, requiring reconstructive surgery.

Health Services. Why three practice groups? Did the Broadway practice group undergo a schism, and defectors started the rival Amsterdam practice group across the hall? Hateful, indeed.

It is hateful that Columbia Security rotates its guards throughout the dorms so that students do not forge relationships with them.

Swiping is a hateful procedure. Signing people in ... Let us not speak of it.

The sign for the ATM line at 212. The arrow points up!

Our campus lacks ping-pong facilities. How can we expect to compete with the other Ivies, flush as they are with ping-pong tables?

Columbia's Morningside campus has two tennis courts for a student population of 10,000. Two. 2.

Librarians who clear your desk of books when you stands up momentarily to purchase yogurt raisins. They intentionally time their sweeps like that. I know it. And hate it.

Hateful are the time limits on blue-bin rentals. What can one do with a blue bin in under an hour? (Something I know, and I won't say how-blue bins float.)

Hateful is the lack of Season 3 of "Miami Vice" in the Butler Media Reserves. I mean, where does the tuition go?

The sandwich line at 212. Must you stand in the register line after buying a sandwich? Or may sandwich-buyers bypass the second line? Ambiguity-most hateful!

Someone in line at a printer selects many small documents individually instead of highlighting them to print all at once. What disgusting behavior!

The change of John Jay dining hall's entrance from the front doors to the side door. How is a student to sneak in and steal waxy apples?

The irrationality of the John Jay fro-yo swirl. Peach and cappuccino: an unholy mixture.

The package room has changed locations four times in the past four years. Nonsensical and hateful.

First-person columns that reek of self-importance and expertise. Just graduate already!

The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in history. He is a former Spectator Urbanities editor.