Until Saturday, I was under the impression that cross country was a noncontact sport. Then, at the Class 1A St. Joseph regional cross country meet at Kickapoo State Park, I got an elbow in the ribs, purely to intimidate me. As Jar-Jar Binks would say, “How rude!”

Unfortunately, this was not the only place where I have encountered rudeness.

In no time at all I came up with a bunch of examples of rude behavior that I have seen:

All week I’ve heard people being rude to each other, both to their face and behind their back, and then backpedal by saying “I was just joking.” Umm, no. You probably weren’t. And, that’s beside the point — the damage is done.

Leaving trash all over the hallways, in classrooms and the kitchen is gross, and it makes the general area smell bad. As the library signs say, "Don't feed the cockroaches."

Coming into math class right after lunch is always a little disgusting. There are always two or three desks that have crumbs all over the top or something sticky on the seat. The citrus smell of oranges wafting over from the desk next to me makes it difficult to concentrate on functions. If you have taken sophomore math, you probably realize the gravity of this situation.

Although some people may find it funny to write on desks that "______ is squishy" (please don't overinterpret this), I'm sure other people don't. I'm not interested in knowing who sits at what desk during what period, and generally (just a tip here) paper serves as a better way to save your poems.

A couple of days ago, I accidentally brushed my hand against the underside of a desk. It was all I could do to not start retching in the middle of the lecture. Sticking (wet, in my case) gum under a desk is disgusting. And what made the experience all the more horrible for me was seeing the trash can placed conveniently in front of the desk. I wanted to scream.

Every once in a while, people have a conversation with their friends while making it back to their seats. They just stop dead in the middle of the row, causing you to bump into them and mumble an apology that they don’t even acknowledge. And they talk. And talk. And talk. Life ebbs away. A tree grows in Brooklyn. Somewhere in the Arctic a huge sheet of ice falls into the sea. And still they are talking.

When this happens, I am tempted to sing "This is a song that never ends …" loudly into their ear. But I don’t. Because that would be rude.

Come on guys. There are other people on the planet.