Loud chewing leads to anger, apathy
Memo Sanchez
Pet peeves are a funny thing.
We all have them. They can be something as little and insignificant as the way a person wiggles their leg when they’re nervous before a midterm or something larger like tax hikes by the state governor (heaven forbid).
Sometimes they are just mere gestures. Other times you have to read between the lines.
Either way, such actions, big or small, have the power to drive even the most sane and level-headed of citizens to the brink of a hair-pulling, teeth-grinding and baby-punching rampage.
Personally, I can’t stand people who chew loudly.
The harder I try not to focus on the smacking, snapping and wet mushy noises of teeth, tongue and food squishing around, the louder it becomes.
I become apathetic to everything else and angry at the one thing I am focusing on.
The squashing crunch and chomp of chewing turns me into someone I’m not.
It would be so simple just to tell the person to close their mouth while they chew, but I choose instead to remain irate and silent.
The disconnect between my happiness and my apathy to do anything about it is almost laughable.
Rather, I think of the meanest things I could do to that person: slapping their slice of pizza out from their hands or smashing their marinara-drenched meatball sub into their melodically masticating face.
In the past, I’d usually just tolerate it, always debating with myself whether these people had been raised in barns or pastures where such manners were acceptable.
Maybe I’ve been waiting too long for those around me to take action.
It’s not fair for me to remain quiet, tortured silently and left helpless by the shackles of diplomacy and kindliness. I know other people are affected by it too.
From here on out, I say nay. It’s time to make a change.
It comes to a certain point where one has to decide to not subject themselves and those around them to the slow psychological crucifixion of the pencil tapping of the desperate engineer major next to you in the Math Center, the leg twitching of the nervous senior outside of career services or the reverberant keyboard clacking of the uncertain journalist in the Writing Center.
I refuse to let the agony of this torment of gnashing to go on.
Apathy and inaction just won’t do. I don’t hesitate to ask people to close their mouths when they chew anymore.
After all, if you don’t speak up about what’s going on around you and try to make a difference, nothing is ever going to change.
Memo Sanchez is a columnist for The Nevada Sagebrush. He can be reached at editor@nevadasagebrush.com
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