As you walked in late to your 9:30 a.m. class on Tuesday morning, the back seats were the only option in the large lecture hall.

While you silently unpacked your things in the shadows of the farthest rows, uncertainty filled the air around you in an unfamiliar territory. These people were different from the bookish students you usually sat by in the front of the classroom, and something about it back here smelled like old cigarettes and fried food.

When the professor got into the slide about ionic compounds, you couldn’t help but notice the kid sitting in the corner of your eye, shoving his finger up the wall-side of his nose. Your eyes locked on the slender movement of his digit in his nostril, your skin starting to boil beneath your own pencil-grasp.

“How could he!” you agonized, disgusted at the potential of touching the same surface as that gross being by the wall. Ionic compounds don’t mean anything when you might end up coming into contact with that boogered finger.

The freshman by the wall then wiped his hand on his shorts, picked his pencil back up and started taking notes about ionic bonds, as if nothing had happened. While your skin crawled for the next five minutes, eventually you reconciled the strategies encouraged during your last therapy session.

“What did that kid do wrong, other than being a chump, nose-picking freshman?” you thought to yourself. While you were seething about the wall-kid, other students were distracting themselves with similar vices like cell phones and early-morning drugs.

After finally leaving that lecture and the rest of the long school day, you found peace in the comfort of your bedroom. But once you scratched all of the itchy parts on your body and thoroughly examined your face, your sleepy fingers just happened to find their way to the last external organ to rouse before finally passing out.

You had good dreams that night because clear nasal cavities allow thorough circulation.

But three days later, after taking those early-morning stimulants and arriving late to class, you found yourself on edge over someone who was equally as wired as you again.