It was a beautiful morning. I was greeted by the sounds of the birds chirping, my alarm blaring the Kars 4 Kids song, and my $7 iced matcha latte tasted extra matcha-like. Midterms hadn’t started yet, so I was still getting at least 4 hours of sleep, and the day before, I was able to see my 3 friends for the only hour we were free on the When2Meet. Basically, everything was going perfectly.
As I walked up the stairs of Wheeler Hall, it was like the world called out to me, telling me I could do anything – like maybe actually pay attention to the professor for the next hour instead of playing every iteration of Wordle that humankind had ever managed to come up with. The day had infinite possibilities, I thought to myself, as I walked down the aisle of Wheeler 150 to sit in my… NO!
It was as if someone had grabbed my heart and smashed it open with a hammer – no, a human-shaped axe. No, a man-in-MY-seat-shaped weapon of mass destruction. The man in question was dumpy, as a man ought to be – I’ll give him that. And he actually had the notes for the class pulled up on his computer, which would have been his greatest offense, if it weren’t for the fact that his ass was parked in the chair that was never assigned to me in the first place.
I’m sure you all will understand: I had been sitting consistently in that seat for the past 5 weeks, which basically meant I owned the fucking seat. I carefully cultivated my view of the professor when I randomly chose that seat on the first day of school. My name was written all over it like a girl way too obsessed with her crush – except it was a crush on myself, because I picked the best seat in the entire lecture hall. And this man had the audacity to steal everything away from me? I made that seat with my BARE HANDS. I selected the plastic, the cushion that was no longer much of a cushion, and the creaky ass desk that couldn’t actually fit a laptop or notebook. I was the seat, and the seat was me.
This random dude had no emotional connection to the seat that I had merged my personality with. This was the seat where I looked up plane tickets to Fiji after finding out my 61B midterm score. That was the seat where I redownloaded Hinge, only to delete it in disgust after 15 minutes of swiping, coupled with the sudden realization that I had absorbed absolutely nothing from the lecture material. No other person could understand the sheer connection I had with that seat. Because I can’t afford therapy, only this seat really, truly knew my deepest hopes, dreams, and thoughts of just leaving all this shit behind and being a barista in my hometown.
And so, dear reader, I must accept the tragic reality: it’s over. My time in the unassigned seat that was spiritually, emotionally, and possibly karmically mine has come to an end. God, or whoever the fuck runs this shit, has spoken. Maybe it’s a lesson in letting go, in giving up the illusion of control I had over my measly corner of Wheeler 150. Or maybe it’s a sign that humanity itself is doomed—if we can’t even honor the unspoken social contract of not sitting in someone’s unofficial seat, I might as well start Armageddon.