Come Together

My sophomore year of college, I was walking across campus one morning to class. Coming toward me on the sidewalk were four students. As I got closer to these students, it became apparent that none of them knew each other (note: I went to a small school, so this is not a story about, say, UCLA, where, duh, no four random people on a sidewalk would know each other. This is the school where for three years I heard over and over, "Bailey, you know everyone." Not true, by the way).

I could tell they didn't know each other because none of them were walking side by side. They were all walking at the same pace, however, and you know how that goes...when you're walking at a comfortable pace, you have the option of passing the person in front of you, but then you have to keep up that new pace so that person you just passed doesn't awkwardly catch up with you, or you just stay at the pace you are going and hang out behind this individual, admiring his or her backpack or, perhaps, derriere.

Well these three (the three behind the one in front, creating a total of four--just making sure you're still with me and not subscribing to another blog) chose to admire the derriere instead of blaze the trail and speed walk ahead. As I took in the scene, I became amused at the fact that because there were not two, not three, but four people total, this was pretty darn awkward for them. It was also early morning, not a busier walking time like the lunch hour, so aside from bird chirping, all these kids could listen to was the shuffling of each other's feet. This was before texting was popular, too, so such was out as an option to pretend they were focusing on something else. Also, no one was walking at a leisurely pace, so they were all kind of on each other's heels. Basically they were just heaping awkwardness upon awkwardness for themselves.

I noticed a resemblance so intense in this scene that as I finally passed them on the sidewalk I couldn't help but share. Sorry, I'm just so ebullient (holla! GRE word! love it), you guys are just going to have to live with this forever, and really, it's the reason you love me in the first place. So it wasn't really until after I opened my mouth and shared my little epiphany with these fellow students of mine that I realized I had just maximized the awkwardness of their situation. I felt a little badly, but really I didn't. It was just too funny and had to be said out loud.

There were four of them and they were perfectly equidistant from each other. As I met them on the walk, I physically paused (like I said, maximizing the awkwardness, I was going all the way with this remark) and craned back to look at them as they passed and said to them, "Hey. It's Abbey Road." They continued on in silence, probably the most uncomfortable they felt that entire month.