Highbrow knows how much of Penn pisses you off. We’re here to air and share your grievances of the week.
The Chewers
You’re sitting in a quiet study room in Huntsman, hating yourself because you have two midterms coming up this week. You’ve just consumed a coffee with two extra shots of espresso and 30 mg of Adderall, and you're trying to get through all the lecture notes and questions on the practice exams. Then, it begins. You think the person two seats down from you is a respectable human and would never disturb the peace of the sacred Huntsman study room. However, just as you subconsciously give him this level of respect, he pulls out the family sized bag of Doritos Cool Ranch chips and begins to go to town. You remain positive and think maybe he’ll just take a crunch or two and put them away, but as he begins consuming the Doritos at a rapid pace you quickly lose hope. What was once a peacefully quiet room, in which the only sounds heard were the self–loathing of students and the occasional whisper of two girls promising each other they would do lunch next week, has become a soundboard of crunching, chewing and swallowing. You start becoming attuned to every little crisp, every sniffle and breath, as he works to breathe and scarf down the bag. After a solid 45 minutes of you contemplating his death, he stops, and you begin to regain your sanity. But never fear, a new, lovely gal just walked in with a full box of Halal and she’s ready to eat her dinner next to you. Hey, maybe she’ll ask if you want a bite.
The Smokes' Bouncers That We All Know Tangentially
As if it isn’t difficult enough to get into Smokes' as it is, most of the bouncers seem to be students that we know on the periphery. Highbrow stands with you, freezing our asses off as we wait patiently in line at 11:30 p.m. on a Wednesday to catch the last half hour of Sink or Swim. We obtain a glimmer of hope as we see our colleague from class or from Allegro the night before working the door. We’re thinking, hey, maybe he’ll be a pal and just let me inside. We sort of know each other right? Wrong. These dudes that you played pong with with a few weeks prior put an end to the fun after stepping inside the bar doorway. You step up confidently with your slightly creased fake that got bent a few weeks beforehand, with the hope that your pal will let you slide past. After handing him your ID, he asks, “Do you have a PennCard?” Like yes but NO. C’mon, you know we’re all sophomores; we had math together last semester. You get turned away being told that he “just can’t accept this.” You take your ID back but leave your dignity on the tile floor to be trampled by those who are lucky enough to get in. You literally can't even. Our angry thoughts are with your angry thoughts. We, too, are quickly walking back to the Radian thinking that we never are going to let ourselves face this type of rejection again. But let’s be real, we’ll see you next Wednesday at 11:35 p.m. on our walk of shame back home.
