Two students walk into the library. They hoof it up to the third floor where they pull out all their homework as well as their iPod speakers because they need some beats they can frat to while burning that midnight oil. Similar to a rabbi and a priest walking into a bar, the whole scene unfolds with tedious inevitability.
The two students are swarmed by a separate group of angry scholars, one of whom shrieks an unholy noise. Suddenly, a dragon bursts through the wall like the Kool-Aid man. The dragon, ironically named Tranquility, seeks out the library's cardinal sinners with a primitive, mythical form of heat seeking missiles. Tranquility exhales a mighty fine flame that roasts the offenders and their speakers like rotisserie chickens. Once again, the library is a quiet place to study.
As we all know, the library has rules to follow in order to provide a distraction-free environment. Maybe Tranquility is a stretch of non-fiction. However, there is merit in asking people who can't follow the rules to either stop or leave. But what about people who aren't breaking any rules and are just annoying? What do we do about them?
We've all been there: you're peacefully studying and someone near you is doing something so incredibly distracting, but you can't say anything about it or ask them to stop because they aren't really doing anything wrong. An incredibly bothersome library moment for me (that I still hold onto), occurred last semester during finals. I was sitting in one of the tree houses on the main floor writing my paper for my very last final. That summertime freedom swag was so close, I could already feel the toll that spending all night mindlessly staring at Tumblr would take on my mental health; and, boy, was I excited.
During that last study session, I noticed a girl who had been waiting for the cubby next to mine. It had finally opened up, and she sprinted up there like Ryan Lochte towards a reality show. Once she had settled in, I could see the flashing of her computer out of the corner of my eye. I glanced over to catch her watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians while clutching a box of granola bars. My first thought was that it was a study break and, after a bit, she'd turn it off.
Apparently, she had a lot up keeping up to do. Over the span of several hours, she slowly grazed through the whole box of granola bars while feeling all the emotional ups and downs of Kourtney and Scott's perfectly imperfect union. By default, so had I. I had no desire to keep up with anyone, let alone the Kardashians. All I wanted was to finish my paper and race back to my one and only true love -- the Internet. But instead, I had only written about one more paragraph and was definitely all for Team Disick.
Now I know this is a two way street. She wasn't breaking any rules; the main floor is the noisy one. Once I saw that this impromptu marathon was going to be a distraction, I could have left. At the same time, it was finals week, and I had been studying there first. Maybe she should have respected that. Regardless of who was at fault here, this was no need for Tranquility.
