I found this post in today's Purdue Exponent. it's so true even i wasnt an avid computer lab user towards the end of my college life.. it's worth reading and agreeable.. :)
"My computer came down with Ibreakbecauseicaneitis, a real computer virus, a few weeks ago during the pinnacle of my semester workload. Despite stroking, pleading, and as a last resort, cinnamon toast with chamomile tea, my computer's health did not improve so I was forced to eat the toast myself and think of an alternate plan to get my papers done. Angry and already sleep deprived, I stormed to a computer lab on campus and set up camp for the long haul.
Little did I know that Purdue's computer labs were a perfect microcosm of our species' most irritating habits. Talking, wheezing, spying, you name it, it's there. Why computer labs, I cannot truthfully answer you; my only theory is that my computer's virus had mutated, traveled with me to the lab, and infected everyone else with something that made them as annoying as George Bush is when he tries to make a speech but can't pronounce the words. Maybe it was the combination of desperation plus sleep deprivation, but suddenly every annoyance I'd found in computer labs magnified to an obsession that can only be released by warning you, my fellow comrades in computer lab suffering, of the most common grievances that I have with the computer lab users.
First of all, it is just the No. 1 law of Doom (half brother to Fate) that you sit next to the only mouth breather in the entire room. Huffing and puffing like he just ran a marathon, his rattling breath will be audible even if your Ipod is turned on. If you are already having a bad day, said mouth breather will have bad breath, and because of the basic law of computer lab physics, their bacteria infested panting will somehow bounce off of their screen, hit the desk, spring up to the ceiling, jet back down into your computer area, gain strength by the laser censor on the mouse, and then angle up to your nose. He will stay the entire you are there, too, because he is playing online video games and has nothing more important to do than rot in front of the computer screen, playing fellow rotting mouth breathers.
Although I've never actually seen a huge sign in the labs that says "NO TALKING- this means you!" with an angry Uncle Sam pointing simultaneously at all of us, it seems like it is an unspoken courtesy to not talk, or to at least talk very quietly, while in the computer lab. There is always, however, at least one person in attendance that missed this memo on etiquette and talks so loudly you wonder if he has earplugs in. This person will, without fail, see someone he knows and pose a conversation with them that is so absurd that the harder you try to ignore it, the louder and more absurd the conversation becomes.
Speaking of loud, obnoxious people, did you just hear Kelly Clarkson blast through the room? Don't worry, she's not singing live in the computer lab, thank god, it's just a cell phone ring, but the worst is yet to come. I'll save you the trouble of turning around and glaring at the perpetrator answering the call by telling you it's a lost cause. The pink shirted girl who answered it will be too busy rehashing into her pink cell phone about her latest episode of partying and getting "wasted" to her friend (presumably also wearing pink), who - unlike everyone else in the room - is incredibly curious what her experience of getting "wasted" was like, because surely she's never experienced anything like it. She will slap pink fingernail-painted hands on the desk in mirth while everyone else turns pink in the face, trying to control their desire to shove her pink phone up her Pink (by Victoria Secret) sweatpants.
After Pink hangs up, you will almost certainly hear two small, weedy guys across the way, giggling with their noses pressed in univariate calculus books and loudly talking in Italian or Chinese or !Kung. Being a nosy person, this is exceptionally irritating to me because, not understanding those languages, I cannot unwittingly spy on their conversation.
After I finished all my papers on that fateful weekend, I sighed in relief knowing that I would finally stop pulling my hair out, strand by strand. I clicked Print, gathered my stuff and headed to the printer, hoping to leave, only to find that Loud Talker, Pink Cell Phone Girl, Mouth Breather, and Weedy Foreign Guys were all in line in front of me at the printer, were all printing a semester's worth of PowerPoint notes, and were all printing with just one slide to a page instead of six. I sighed, sat back down to wait and pulled out my cell phone to call someone and loudly tell them all about my weekend."
By Anne Reznicek. Sophomore in the College of Liberal Arts. Publication Date: 12/08/06
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