Graham Center solicitation turns student haven into hell

Alex Sorondo/Staff Writer
alex.sorondo@fiusm.com

I am so absolutely terrified of everything around me, so blatantly freaked out by loud noises and suspicious peripheral movements, that I have, since coming to college, just abandoned all hope of ever looking cool at anything because it’s just not possible.
Everything makes me flinch. I recoil constantly. At least 10 percent of my daily oxygen intake is composed of petrified gasps and, frankly, it’s rare that a waiter or waitress appears beside me without eliciting a legitimate scream these days (after which, depending on my mood, I either apologize or berate them for sneaking up on me).
Being so perpetually alert (because it’s really not so much paranoia as it is a constant preparedness to run from danger) makes a lot of daily activities almost overwhelmingly anxious: driving, shopping, standing outside – everything becomes a Lovecraftian stress test.
Exceptionally grueling is having to walk everyday through the Graham Center at some point between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., when the nightmarish tabling circus is in full swing like some haunted midnight gypsy carnival with its baked goods, room-temperature pizza, sign-up sheets, discount jewelry, cell phone cases, perfumes and Bibles.
Meanwhile, hordes of fraternity and sorority members distribute flyers and pamphlets, asking you to join this or donate for that, and somebody’s stereo always blasts one of eight songs. It’s awful.
I don’t say that just to be a curmudgeon, or because I’m repelled by their energy; I say this because it’s invasive.
The music is unnervingly loud, overplayed if not outdated, and the bass makes me feel like I have spiders in my larynx.
When two frat guys approach me in unison with their arms outstretched:
1) There’s a jarring few seconds where I haven’t registered their motives.
2) I don’t have the nerve to just say “No, thank you” to either one because, frustrating though they are, I feel guilty to just shoot them down off the bat.
3) I don’t want to take their pamphlets because, in that regard, I’m just like everybody else on campus.
And so I just end up standing there stammering, my hands raised palm-up by my head, non-compliant, sounding like Consuela from “Family Guy” saying, “No…no…”
These flyer-people hurl themselves shamelessly at you to take, read and relish their glossy cards with their dagger-like corners, as though the stack is going to explode if it doesn’t get thinner.
After years of this, they all seem completely undaunted by the indifference and consistency with which so many people take these flyers and just throw them in the nearest garbage can.
The late comedian Mitch Hedberg pointed out that, when somebody hands you a flyer, it’s essentially like they’re saying, “Here, you throw this away.”
There is no point to the flyers. Nobody likes them, and I will guess with total confidence that the majority of them are handed off to people who then discard them without reading.
Even worse than the flyers is the nuisance of being presented with them by overeager solicitants.
As often as I can, I now circle around GC rather than walk through it, just to avoid this plague of glossy “Dance and Get Wasted and Do Stuff in Public You’ll Regret Tomorrow” cards.