After dinner on a seemingly regular Wednesday evening in Penrose Library, the normal hustle and bustle is accompanied with maximum side-chat and minimum work being completed in all realms of the campus’s favorite book castle, except for in the Penrose Quiet Room.

How these studious specimens congregated in Penrose’s sacred space varies. In a survey conducted about quiet room demographics, we had a lot of participants, like 22, which is pretty good. Results showed that 19 percent answered that they “initially intended to go straight to the quiet room from the very idea of getting work done”, 4 percent answered “I like the lamps” and the other whopping 77 percent clicked the “initially I tried to be with peers, but after realizing in hour two the only completion of anything was an unfinished to-do list and a friend therapy session induced by the fact that I was falling behind in school, I had to call the quits and abandon my army”.

This diverse pool of students diligently worked until approximately 8:07 p.m., when a student bent over and slowly unzipped each tooth of their backpack, priming the audience for what’s to come. They reached and grabbed the bag of Lay’s BBQ Kettle Chips; crinkle crunches reverberating across the large interior. Surrounding students sat stunned before the real incident even happened. To everyone’s amazement, the student rrrrripped open the bag of sweet-smoky-savory-crispies, with only one or two chips flying outward, and began to not only start, but finish, eating the whole bag of chips.

Since the bag pop heard round the campus, reactions have been polarized. Some see the Whitman student’s action as ground-breaking, glass-ceiling shattering and the committing of civil disobedience in order to serve the people who have struggled with accidental disruptions in the past. “At last! A time where I can just zip up my bag, shift in my chair and let out a gnarly fart without an embarrassment-induced stress headache! You can usually feel the stares. Who knows, maybe I’ll even wear my new plastic skirt next time I’m trying to get work done,” affirms a pro-disrupter. Another enthusiastic student replies, “Yeah, I’m excited. I’m thinking’ of napping on some bubble-wrap next Tuesday in there.”

However, alongside every ecstatic reaction was one full of disgust, confusion and fear. “I never focused so much negative energy on one person for as long as I did that night. You try and explain why my whole entire thesis didn’t get written!” Exclaimed an angry bystander. Another confused bystander questioned, “Why it called Quiet Room if it’s gonna be not quiet?”

Since the integration of sounds in the once silent Quiet Room, Quiet Room Advocates have no choice but to migrate outwards to other parts of the library, silencing the rest of Penrose. The glass doors that once contained the prestige and serene atmosphere of productivity, now shamelessly contains The Distracted, The Loud Mouthed and The Fidgety for potentially decades to come.