I am a thief of souls, a crusher of dreams and a destroyer of life. I emanate a transcendental glow of awesome everywhere I go. People fear, respect and obey me. I am the ultimate source of power and authority on campus. Whatever I say goes, and people like it.

Undoubtedly, this description has given away who I am, a member of the most elite group on campus: sophomores who are living in the dorms for a second year and are not thrilled with the current state of affairs in these residence halls.

Being a sophomore in the dorms, I shouldn’t even feel the need to justify my discontent; I am a powerful supply of cool for crying out loud. So, last year, when everyone else said "Yeah man, I’m moving to an apartment next year." I said, "To hell with that. I want more premade, low-quality meals. I want laundry services in my basement. I want convenience.I don’t do cooking. I don’t do taking care of myself. I have people to do those things for me."

Now to the current state of affairs. Life as a king among peasants in Sellery Hall should be good. It should be really good. All semester though, my Reign of Convenience has been trodden on by a small, but ever-present percentage of freshmen that refuses to adhere to the common sense guidelines for efficiency in the dorms. During the first week or two, I put up with this nonsense with a lighthearted eye roll and a soft, understanding — even sympathetic — smile. But those days are over. It has been a month, and too many people still have not shown any willingness to comply.

The problem I am referring to is the horrific flow of the elevators, day in and day out, morning and night. I fear that if something isn’t said soon, these elevator amateurs could take over. In loving memory of a better time — i.e. last year when the class of 2010 was remarkably more competent in elevator etiquette than the class of 2011 has proven to be, a time when our elevator flow didn't imitate New York City traffic — I intend for this article to serve as a last bastion of hope that by addressing the issue publicly, it might be solved.

The rules are simple. If you enter the elevator first, key your floor, then ask your fellow riders what floors they wish to have keyed. If someone asks for a floor that is directly below a floor you’ve already keyed, respond with something along the lines of “Stuff it” or “Take a hike” or "Could you please walk from the floor that has already been keyed that is directly one floor above yours, which would take you approximately four seconds to walk down, so as to save the rest of us the inconvenience of you implying that your time is incredibly more valuable than ours?"

Walking one floor is not a hardship (but lest I be labeled as prejudiced, I'll state that exceptions can obviously be made for people with physical limitations), and it saves everyone a lot of time and annoyance. Think: If 10 seconds of your time are destroyed every time someone excess-keys a floor, and this happens to you three times a day (this is a very conservative estimate, considering it is not uncommon to see more than one excess-keying during a single ride), you will lose more two hours of your time throughout the year to scum who enjoy squandering your life away. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather spend those two hours basking in the glory of an awesome movie like "Independence Day."

Next, if someone asks you to key a floor one level above yours, such as the ninth floor, and you have already keyed the eighth floor, this is okay as long as no one has already keyed the tenth floor, and as long as it is during a relatively slow part of the day. If a giant mob of people cram into the elevator, keying two floors — such as six and nine in a building with ten floors — can get people from six different floors a spot within one floor of their own to walk from.

As a final tip, if you live on a floor that you can comfortably walk to without significantly raising your heart rate, you probably shouldn’t be taking the elevator in the first place.

Finally, I conclude by begging you to be more courteous when riding the elevators. We all have places to go and things to do, so please be conscious of what you are doing when you get on the elevator by following my tips and your own common sense.

Brenton Martell ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in English.