Sohini Sengupta 4A Scary Things in the Hallway I innocently walk down the hallway to get to English, my favorite class, when a looming obstacle suddenly obstructs my path. A pink, slimy object protrudes from a mouth into another portal and sloshes around. A gush of saliva comes splattering out and falls on my very feet. It felt like some sumo wrestler jumped into the Atlantic Ocean. It was that wet, and it wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. This intermingling lasts for another 5 minutes until finally the two pink objects disperse; a final string of juicy saliva trails out. I take this memory of horrification with me and quietly enter English class; I will be forever scarred. This little “hypothetical” scenario may seem gruesome on paper, but imagine witnessing it for real. Just imagine how much more dramatizing, graphic, and disturbing it is in real life especially to a sweet-innocent bystander like me. It’s just plain gross. One thing I absolutely cannot stand in this world is witnessing PDA in the hallway at school. It’s just something I don’t want to see because it’s gross. People must be mental to even think to put their tongue in some else’s mouth at school. If two people love each other that much, they can just show their passion somewhere else where no one can see. They don’t need to share their love to the whole world—the whole world does not want to know. I’m okay with a quick hug here and there. Even I give hugs to random black guys in the hallway. Witnessing a quick peck is even bearable, but when people whip out that tongue, that’s where I draw the line. By definition, a school is “The activity or process of learning under instruction”. In my opinion, PDA at school does not fall anywhere near that definition. It hinders people from learning properly because they are scarred from what they witness in the hallway. School is supposed to provide a proper environment for learning, not offer a make-out arena. I don’t know if this is an issue that only bothers me, but I have a hard time trying to get to class when five million couples are standing in the middle of the hallway doing some nasty business. It’s just plain wrong. It makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it. I don’t see how people have the guts to actually show PDA in front of an authority figure. I respect my elders, and I don’t do anything that may seem offensive to them. I cannot do a lot of things in front of them, and PDA is far from my mind. *Two years ago, back when I was cute and in middle school, there was this couple who decided to designate their make-out space right in front of my locker. Everyday, in between blocks, I would get distracted by the intermingling of this couple, and would sometimes be late to class. It was just a disturbing sight to look up and see all that saliva sloshing around. It was as if their tongues were playing tennis—the tongues were the rackets to the ball-like saliva, and their mouths were glued together like a bear to her cub. In class, I would have to endure even more of their PDA. It was pretty disturbing to see them touch each other in inappropriate places unimaginable for “middleschoolers” like me. It was extremely gross. But thanks to Mrs.Jones’s “no touchy” rule, I won’t have to endure that in my tenth grade English class at all.* Hopefully we have all learned a very important lesson: at school, tongues are not meant to be in anyone’s mouth, but our own. School is a place where our knowledge is supposed to grow, and PDA is a factor that affects how we all think. People should take their minds out of the gutter and concentrate more on school. By following this rule, not only do we keep our minds and environment clean, but we keep our mouths clean. Key - Hyphen - Similes - Semi colon - Dash - Repetition - Metaphor - Colon * * - Anecdote