By Brian Bruns, Columnist
There are many things about PLU I will miss — my friends, student media and the great classroom discussions. However, there are many things about PLU that I will not miss after I leave.
I will not miss the people who hold the door open for you from a mile away. It’s usually a sign of good manners when someone holds the door for you, but these people take it to the extreme.
I either have to sprint to the door to take advantage of your goodwill or risk looking like a jerk when I calmly continue my pace. You may have good intentions, but most people can handle the door just fine.
If you’re helping people who might have trouble opening the door on their own, then by all means, be polite. The only other time you should be holding the door open is when someone is following right behind you and is ready to hold it also.
The over-polite door-holders are in no way related to the people who can’t seem to use more than the first two doors at the entrance of the Anderson University Center (AUC). If you’ve ever been caught in a people-jam leaving or entering the AUC, then blame it on this strange phenomenon.
I actually thought the other doors were broken when I first arrived on campus. Turns out, it isn’t the doors that are broken.
Since we’re talking about doors, I will definitely not miss the Mega Door in Ingram Hall. Anyone who’s been to Ingram should know exactly what I’m talking about.
It is literally the hardest door I have ever tried to open. Less intimidating doors have nightmares about Ingram’s Mega Door. Bank vault doors aspire to Mega Door’s standard of stubbornness.
Mega Door is supposed to be the disabled access door that opens at the touch of a button. Except that the button is about the only thing that can force it apart. Our entire athletic department should develop a workout centered on Mega Door. As a side note, Mega Door is also the archenemy of the over-polite door-holder.
I will most certainly not miss the people who — just because they’re in a group — refuse to go single file on the stairs or sidewalk. I call them staircase bullies.
This crazy game of chicken happens when two or more friends just can’t seem to accept that one may need to walk behind the other for three-tenths of a second to be polite to the rest of us normal humans using the sidewalk or stairs.
Instead, they force you to bump into them, squeeze to the side or stop walking altogether as if you were a peasant in the presence of sidewalk royalty. Beg pardon, milord.
On a funny, but very serious note, I will not miss the bird attacks near Mortvedt Library. Yes, this is a real thing. If you are lucky enough to attend PLU during nesting season, then you too have the chance to be maliciously pecked by a murder of overprotective crows.
Okay, I admit that I was never pecked, but they cawed at me plenty, and the signs PLU put up about it made me nervous. I already have a fear of becoming a target for bird droppings, so the warnings about diving birds did not help.
My time at Pacific Lutheran University has been special, filled with great memories and, as much as I complain, I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything. I feel like we are all part of the same PLU family no matter where we came from.
Even if that family includes staircase bullies and over-polite door-holders.
