Watch your step

By Chaz Wilke

It’s the only thing you touch all day every day in every building. Yes, it’s come to this — a review of the worst floors on campus.

How in the world can anyone actually study in the library with such annoying carpet?

The navy, orange and yellow pin-striped carpet boggles my imagination that someone would create such an eyesore and actually sell it to an institution.

The carpet is the first thing I see walking into the library, and the haunting aura of its wretchedness stays with me long after I leave.

Also, did you know if you walk over the crest on the floor in the foyer of the library, you allegedly won’t graduate? Senior chemistry major Greg Smith always hears the tour groups mentioning the curse, but he hasn’t heard anything from the librarians.

“Every school I’ve been to has something like that with the crest [being cursed],” he said.

I’d wager that the person who chose the carpet was cursed with bad interior decorating genes. The crest works in mysterious ways — avoid it at all costs.

At the Holmes Student Center, its poison is linoleum tile, but it can’t even get that right. Opting out of the standard checkered-tile pattern, they go out on a whim and do this wacky diamond inlay pattern. Although it’s not as annoying as Technicolor carpet, it still is unnecessary.

Adams Hall is one of the older buildings on campus and has overlooked its decaying floors for many a decade. There are areas where the tile has chipped away, leaving an open wound of bare flooring. The older tile is made of a polyurethane asbestos, which, from what I’ve learned, is not a health hazard, but to have that stuff floating around certainly isn’t improving my health.

As far as residence hall carpets, they are a pretty standard brownish fare, but generally are stained by every foodstuff known to man. Evidently, college students can balance a full load of classes but not a Styrofoam container of food and drink.

The elevator in Grant Towers remains a mystery because the food splatters aren’t always confined to the floor. I understand there is a certain amount of G-force at work in an elevator, but not enough to fling chocolate pudding onto the ceiling. Dear God … I hope that was chocolate pudding.

Stevenson Towers does rank as having perhaps the best floors on campus. The sterile gray cement look seems to be stolen from a local hospital, which, as opposed to all the horrible floor coverings around campus, is a breath of fresh air.