What Gets My Goat

1. Not enough community. You are sitting quietly in your room, diligently and enthusiastically attempting a paper, thinking ‘Gee whiz, I really wish somebody would come and bang on my door and invite me to go play video games for the rest of my evening.’ Naturally, you should give up all of your academic obligations whenever the first distraction on your community-based hallway comes opening your door without permission. Don’t you just wish that one of your neighbors would follow you around constantly – in your room as you try to sleep, at dinner as you try to eat peacefully, in the bathroom as you try to, well, you know – telling you about their latest theological epiphany? I just wish that I could fall asleep to the sound of my neighbor rocking out on his electric guitar at 2 a.m. Darn, I need more community on my hall.

2. Fire drills at 6 a.m. You are dreaming peacefully in your sleep (or having nightmares, depending on whether or not you watched Sunday’s episode of “The Walking Dead”) and all of a sudden the sound of a calm bay breeze (or the gut-wrenching sound of a walker chewing through human flesh) becomes a terrifying, annoying shriek. Your eyes flit open and you see the white-flashing lights and you know all too well what is happening. Your building’s fire alarms are inconveniently ringing at 6 a.m. and have Woken ^ The World! If only they could have gone off at 5:30 a.m. instead! How inconsiderate of the potential fire hazards to create this interruption so late in the morning! Seriously, had they gone off earlier, you would have had so much less time lying in agony due to chronic sleep disorder. You could have joyfully waited outside in the freezing rain while waiting for security to inspect the building, locate the problem and turn the alarms off.

3. Satirical Waltonian writers who complain about things that get their goat and the readers who do not understand that they are satirical. Seriously, can this guy get a life? I don’t even think he is all that funny. All he does is complain about things that do not make much sense. I do not even know what half of the things he writes about are. I mean, how are house elves and socks even related? He probably thinks that he is very funny, but I do not think he actually is – kind of like Seth Meyers.

4. Humble “advanced placement” students. You see him in the dining commons. She lives on your hallway. You pass them as you walk to class (well, not really, because your classes are not on that side of campus). They are the “advanced placement” students of Eastern University. Their humility is overwhelming. You overhear their conversations in the library, “Oh, I just finished reading Augustine’s De Civitate Idiotae in the original vernacular.” “Oh, well I just memorized Book 3 of Plato’s Republic.” “We should not speak so loudly in the library – we do not want to disturb the Arts and Sciences kids while they do their homework.” They laugh loudly together, repeating the word “mirth” over and over again.