*originally appearing in satirical April 1 edition

The resurgence of an epidemic, something no one wants nor dreams of, yet in this school, we are seeing one of the worst epidemics coming back into the student body’s consciousness. Every weekday morning, I find myself in the same situation, walking slowly behind a dozen freshman obsessed with some new relationship or some coach’s new decree, making me nearly late to class almost every time. Seemingly, they forget that the other 1500 people that attend the school daily actually do not want to be truant and, surprisingly, actually have a place to walk to, something they find unrelatable. 

This epidemic illustrates a constant pressure upon the temples of seniors across the board, a painful reminder that we must share a school with “peers” years younger than ourselves. We need an immediate solution, one that illustrates the entire momentum of the upperclassmen to take down this danger. There is nothing more frustrating than a slow walker and talker, and freshmen provide us with an example of both, as Ludacris said: “Move, freshman! Get out the way!” 

The best solution to this problem is physical persuasion if they don’t be quiet and mince like good little underclassmen.

A poll taken by the Political Science class of the seniors shows that over 96% believe that freshmen stopping in the hallway illustrates a problem and 88% think that the freshmen should be steeply punished for their hallway infractions. With hallway traffic so congested, it makes Austin rush hour look like a stroll through a park. These massive numbers just further provide us with reason to take this corridor pollution to the trash. We cannot sit idly by and not help future generations (and our present selves) hail down the freshmen with all our strength to make certain we are not annoyed by them any longer.

This epidemic also shows us that in emergencies, the freaked out freshmen will simply cosplay as a Medusa garden gnome and leave all of the upperclassmen stranded. Forget weaponry or bad standardized test scores, freshmen could prove to be the most dangerous thing that faces us on the daily, a stopgap to securing our academic bag. Do we possibly want to live in a constant state of hysteria that we might become trapped by 14-year-olds obsessed with Riverdale? 

Some may argue, “Is discriminating and showing malevolent tendencies toward the freshman considered vigilantism and hate crime?” And to that I must propose, is cleaning up litter and throwing it in the recycling bin considered a hate attack against the litter? 

Why couldn’t the chicken cross the hallway? Because the freshmen were walking too slow and Colonel Sanders caught up. Freshmen illustrate a bane of school society that communes with danger like Joseph Stalin, yet, because we view them as allies, we do not process a reciprocation to their actions. So, the next time a freshman walks in front of me at a speed a tortoise would be jealous of, don’t be surprised to see me clothesline them.

By Ethan Everman, Staff Writer

Featured photo by Savannah Karas