Irrational Anger

I'm in the only open student computing lab on campus. There is a woman using the only computer that has the scanner. Only she isn't using the scanner. She has chosen this computer among countless others because of its convenient proximity to the printer. She is taking a biology practice exam. I need to use the scanner to scan three articles for my fall syllabus and two contracts I need to get to an editor. I am filled with irrational anger.

I keep walking up to the help desk and saying, loudly, "Are you allowed to take biology exams on the computer with the scanner? No? Oh, well, maybe you should make your big, bold, red sign a little more visible."

For awhile, I stand behind her doing loud nasal breathing like my dad does when he wants to use the stove and someone's making Rice-A-Roni. I sigh repeatedly and crinkled my papers, fantasizing about the big F-minus she might get on her test. I hope to distract her to the point of tears, or at least make her go home and complain about me to her roommates.

Then I realize I am acting like I am five. After all, I am in my upper 20s now. This little rule breaker is probably only 18 and might fail out of college. Or even get alcohol poisoning later this month. I sit down at a computer near her and try to ease my fury.

I have decided what bothers me most about the situation is not that I have to wait for the scanner. She is doing something wrong, deliberately inconveniencing others. I feel that she feels entitled to use that computer for her biology exam, others' needs be damned. I find solace knowing that sometime in the near future, she is going to need a parking space to get a fake bake at Hollywood Tans. And I will be in the 15 minute loading zone space for at least a half hour. On purpose.