We’ve all been there.

You’re racing to class. There are mere seconds before the bell is going to ring. Teachers in front of their own classrooms are looking at you condescendingly, pitying the poor teacher that will have to deal with your tardiness. Your feet are slipping, your bag is simultaneously digging into your shoulders whilst falling off your back and the convenient clocks placed every ten feet or so seem to taunt you with the ever-decreasing countdown to the bell.

And you come upon a horde.

Not a fight. No, the people in this particular group aren’t actively tussling, aren’t doing anything with the reminiscence of practicality. They instead drag their feet, shuffle, don’t even seem to be moving, all the while managing to fill every crevice with their useless body mass.

These are the Slow Hallways Walkers.

Why, why, do people feel like high school hallways are their territory? Hallways are there for the sole purpose of providing connections to classrooms. In order to provide the idea of order, we have even developed a road-like organization; students are to always walk on the right side of the hallway. You’d think this would discourage students from forming walls out of their bodies.

For some reason, students feel it is their God-given right to extend their friend groups to the limits of the walls, leaving it innocent passer-by only three options:

1. You can politely say excuse me, which the SHW won’t hear, so you will increase the volume of your request until you are nearly shouting. This will catch finally their attention and they’ll probably let you through, but not without sufficiently sassing you into remission to their incompetent will.

2. You can wait it out, hoping that at the corner the hallway will widen momentarily and you can dart around the amoeba. This can only be done if you can stand the disdain being thrown at your back because you want to walk at a normal pace down the hallway of a public institution.

3. Finally, you can shove by them. This is the most dangerous option and may, in fact, end in the tussle you were hoping for earlier. At the very least, insults and mockery will be directed towards you.

Any way you choose to deal with the situation, you will be ridiculed for your desire to not be late to class. Which is ironic, really, because this whole article is ridiculing the SHW for their hallway-blocking habits.

Ah, humanity. Always judging someone for something.