I was sitting in a Memorial Library quiet study room, working through \Moby Dick,"" when I heard an unsettling sound coming from behind me.
I thought for a second. I recognized this sound. I'd heard it many times, just never in the library.
It was the sound of people making out.
""No,"" I thought to myself. ""That couldn't be. Nobody would make out in this study room full of other people silently reading Melville, studying Portuguese verbs or napping with heads rested in the spine of Anthology of Icelandic Folklore.""
I thought of what else it could be. Perhaps a toothless man chewing on a wet Superball. Or possibly a Jell-0 mold going through the hose extension of a vacuum cleaner. Perhaps a donkey eating two grapefruits at the same time.
I had to know. I got up, walked to the end of the bookshelf that separated me from the noise, turned and looked right.
Sure enough. A guy and a girl making out, for all to enjoy.
The guy had his backpack and jacket on, so I guessed he was getting ready to leave the library. This was a goodbye kiss turned make-out session.
I kept moving to the drinking fountain, feeling glad that when I returned to my spot, the guy would be gone. Thankfully, this girl was not some stone-cold player waiting for her other make-out buddy to come by, so I read about the White Whale in peace for the rest of the night.
Just like I thought I would when I came to the library the next night. I went to the same study room, but sat at a different table this time, far from my location the night before.
I sat down and cracked ""Moby Dick."" I read peacefully for a few minutes, until I heard soft but irritating conversation coming from behind me. To my chagrin, that cooing soon turned into the sound from the night before. Instead of getting up this time, I turned around in my chair, pulled a book off the shelf and looked through the space it left.
Same couple, making out.
I cycled through my options. Do I ask them to stop so I can read? Ask if they want me to sing Boyz II Men's ""End of the Road"" for some mood music? Stand up on my table and yell ""holy shit everybody, watch these two suck face""?
Instead, I just relocated.
On the walk home I thought about what I'd seen the last two nights. I concluded that if, by chance, these two were divinely intended for each other, it was beautiful that they couldn't restrain their affection, even in such an inappropriate place. No matter how annoyingly it manifests itself, how can the possibility of true love make me mad?
I felt like this until a few days later. I was sitting in the Helen C. White computer lab, heavy into composing a column, when there it was, to my left--the make-out noise.
This was too much. I began regretting my generosity for the couple's displays over our last two run-ins. I turned, determined to say my piece about their manners.
It was not them. It was a young man. He was chomping, mouth agape at each smack of the tongue, on a whole peeled orange.
I left the library and decided I should just study at home for a while.
dlhinkel@students.wisc.edu.
