Meadows have grass, oceans have water and deserts have sand. Society?
Society has rules, people.
Specifically, I’m talking about proper etiquette. Etiquette is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the conduct or procedure required by good breeding or prescribed by authority to be observed in social or official life.”
In layman’s terms, etiquette is essentially the proper way of actually interacting with other people as a legitimate human being. Dogs, for instance, cannot nearly express etiquette as well as, say, a Trinity Prep student could . . . or so I thought.
Now, etiquette has various ways of expressing itself: not interrupting someone during a conversation (no matter how repulsed you are by their usage of “good” instead of “well”), saying “please” after a request, actually using your turn signal when switching lanes, entering through the rightmost door in the case of double doors . . .wait, what?
Yes, people. When faced with the peculiar situation in which two doors are combined and facing each other to form what is known as a “double door,” the accepted etiquette is to enter through your rightmost door—just as cars are expected to drive in the rightmost lane. One would think this would be fairly obvious, no?
However, while the Trinity campus is blessed to have various double doors so as to best facilitate the numerous youths that filter in and out through its hubs of education, it is cursed in that the large majority of said youths clearly don’t understand that when I open the rightmost door to enter the library, this does not give you and your 16 other friends congregating around you permission to pour out like water from a broken dam. Likewise, I would prefer that when I approach the rightmost door to open it, I don’t nearly get a broken nose from someone slamming the door open from the other side like they’re a surprise guest on a sitcom.
There is also proper etiquette involved even when you make the saintly sacrifice to actually open the correct door. Indeed, straining to actually hold a door open for someone other than yourself is merely a courtesy—not a moral obligation to society like entering through the correct side is. However, improperly executing the “door hold” technique is a straight up offense and, quite frankly, deserving of a throwdown downtown. For instance, I do not appreciate when I follow someone who opens the door enough only to allow for the approximately 3.141519 inches of space absolutely required for them to slip through. If you are aware that there is someone behind you, allow them to catch the door after you instead of slipping through the door like a T.V. remote into a seat cushion.
Society is maintained through order. Thus, when we break the rules, we are consequently tearing apart the balance of society at the seams. Plus, learning door etiquette really isn’t as burdensome as, say, maintaining decades-long streaks with your 396 Snapchat friends. Hmm, I should really talk about that. . .
Coming up next issue: Who gives a snap?
