WOODBURY–You’ve got four minutes to make it from one side of the school to the other. If the bell rings before you get there, your teacher will mark you tardy. Excuses will get you nowhere. 

 As you start your high-pressure trip, you find yourself stuck behind a group of people moving slower than a sloth.

For me and people who have places to be, there are few things more frustrating than getting stuck behind a slow walker in the Nonnewaug halls. It’s not just inconvenient. It’s infuriating.   

“If you have to get to class on time, it’s annoying.” Chris Engle, a junior, elaborated on this topic perfectly. “And if people aren’t going to go to their classes immediately, then don’t stand in a group. Move around.” 

He’s right. The hallways aren’t a social lounge. They’re the trails of the school, and slow walkers are polluting them.

Aaron Coretto, a junior, however, has a solution.

“They need to stay on their side of the hallway,” Coretto says, “or at least stay close to the end.” 

It should be a simple rule: stay to the right, move with purpose, and let faster people pass. Unfortunately, that message hasn’t reached the freshmen yet. 

When asked which grade walks the slowest, nearly everyone agreed: “Freshmen.”

Olivia Thompson, a senior, didn’t hold back either.

 “I think they should move out of the way,” Thompson says. “I know I walk slow, but I have a reason, and they walk slower than me!” 

She’s not wrong. Some students seem to fluctuate between speeds as if they’re testing our patience for fun.

Even teachers feel the pain. 

“It drives me crazy…” Deborah Flaherty, Library Media Specialist and track coach, says. “I got places to be and things to do, and they just get in my way.”

So here’s a desperate cry for all the slow walkers of Nonnewaug: Pick a pace and stick with it. The rest of us have classes to get to, and if you can’t speed up, at least step aside.