Sept. 23, 11:58 p.m.
That particular night, something unexpectedly struck a chord with me. Something tapped into a dormant anger in me. Someone spilled salad on the third floor stairs in Main.
It was a quiet Thursday night. After concluding my math homework, I ascended the stairs of Main when, much to my surprise, I found the third floor landing desecrated by cucumber halves and cherry tomatoes. The scent of vinaigrette filled the stairwell. To me, this incident crossed a moral line and I felt I needed to speak on it. I was silent when someone spilled beer on the fourth floor steps, and I stayed silent when someone didn’t flush or wipe on two consecutive days in my hall’s bathroom, but this took things too far.
I wake up in a bunk bed that’s far too high off the ground in a triple made for two people; I shower with curtains too small; I have schoolwork too immense to get all of it done. The one thing I thought I could rely on was that the stairs would be safe and salad-free. That night I learned I could no longer trust the stairs. Stairs are dangerous enough to navigate on their own, let alone with food added to the mix. At this point, I don’t know if my next step on that staircase will be my last. Might I perish slipping on scallops, falling on falafel or tripping on tortellini?
I want a public apology from whoever did this. I want a note on the third floor steps that says, “I know what I did was wrong and I’m not gonna make excuses for my actions. Just know that I’m deeply sorry for what I did” and I want that apology a week ago. I thought we were better than this. I thought we kept salad off the stairs. I guess I thought wrong.