As we tiptoe into the month of May, we count down the last days of our semester, our school year and for a precious few overachievers, our college careers. Now is the time to buckle down for finals, take the last mental snapshots of a passing chapter in our lives, and, most of all, settle unfinished business.
For my roommate Ben and me, there is plenty of settling to do. We must pack for his imminent move, divide our shared possessions and hold ambitious discussions about how to properly celebrate this June 21st, my first-ever birthday in Madison. But above all, there's one thing he agreed to help me do: seek out our everywhere people.
An everywhere person is not an actual acquaintance of yours, but a stranger you see so frequently in your everyday life that you almost feel like you know the person. Sometimes, it's the statuesque blonde who looks like a Boticelli painting when the mid-morning sunlight catches her on Bascom Hill. Sometimes, it's the hipster on Gilman Street, who smells like the apocalypse when the mid-afternoon breeze embraces him. The only detail these people's lives share is that they move frequently through our own without us ever attempting to acknowledge their passing familiarity.
Until now, that is.
Monday afternoon, Ben and I set out to find our everywhere people. We searched State and Langdon streets, Espresso Royale and Memorial Union, and still couldn't find anyone. We went to Helen C. White, which we figured to be a sure thing. Once there, we found plenty of people we knew, but no everywhere people.
Finally, I spotted one of my everywhere people as we were getting ready to leave the library. In one of the creepiest things I've done all week, I tailed him all the way across the first floor and up the stairs. When I finally caught up to him, I explained the concept of everywhere people and said that he was one of mine. He looked a bit surprised, but was very nice about it. He was a good-natured junior from Boston named Jesse. We figured out that we're both frequenters of the library and the SERF, which would explain him being my everywhere person.
Sadly, the rest of the day didn't quite go that way. After more fruitless searching, Ben gave up, and it took until 10 p.m. for me to find another everywhere person. This one wasn't so receptive. I approached him and explained that he was my everywhere person. He looked at me like I was wearing a clown suit. He dismissively said that he was \everyone's everywhere guy"" and walked away. Instead of an everywhere person, he will now be my ""looks at me like I'm stalking him"" person.
But perhaps the most telling thing I heard all day was from someone named Julie. She heard about my quest and said that she once approached one of her everywhere people, who promptly treated her like she had the plague. But another time, someone else approached her to say that she was one of his everywhere people, and now she sees him everywhere, and the two have become friends.
So maybe the truth is that everywhere people, like radio songs and romance, only really enter our lives when we're not actively looking for them. But as we wind down the end of the school year, that shouldn't stop us from trying one last time.
Amos Posner is on fire with solidarity. He can be reached at amosap@hotmail.com. His column runs every Wednesday in The Daily Cardinal.
