There are a handful of squeak doors on campus that scream at a remarkably high frequency. It’s actually painful to walk through them because the waveform rapes my eardrum. And yet, people continue to use them instead of choosing adjacent non-squeaking doors. Of course, the non-squeaking doors are also used, but I had hoped that these silent doors would be used to the exclusion of the squeak doors, at least until a maintenance person with lubrication happened to spend some minutes at the hinges. But, as I’ve said, there is unfortunately no door discrimination on the part of the university community.

I have developed two explanations for this behavior. In all likelihood, both explanations are applicable to different people in varying degrees.

Explanation 1: certain people continue to make scream doors scream simply because they themselves cannot hear the door cry. This is a reasonable assumption because the squeak doors operate at such a peculiarly high noise and because a number of people on campus are aged and have understandably inferior hearing capabilities when compared to the average. There is also that group of people who, while young, have damaged their ears beyond repair due to too high a db level for too long etc. Both groups, aged and young, are equally good candidates for this explanation.

Explanation 2: having to do with that group of people who are receptive to the door screams. These people no doubt are caused discomfort when opening doors of the screaming type, for, what living creature able to perceive the sound would not wince in pain upon hearing it? Why then do they continue to cause themselves and other equally capable hearing people discomfort? I submit that they find it very important to live in accordance with the unspoken rules of commute [see this prior post dealing with door opening directions for details]. To exemplify this explanation, if, for instance, the squeak door was, from the perspective of a person exiting a building, the right-hand side one of a double door set, a person whose behavior can be explained using this explanation would open the right-hand side door, despite the fact they knew from memory that the left-hand side door was silent and despite the discomfort that opening the right-side door would cause, because opening the left-hand door, while kind to the ears, would be in conflict with people entering the building. In short, the physical discomfort these people feel when opening squeak doors is minuscule in comparison to the moral discomfort they would feel as a consequence of acting at odds with commute rules.

This discussion could continue for some time, but I’d like to finish with an important point. As frustrating a conclusion as it is, I think that the existence of people who fit into explanations 1 and 2 are a necessary element of the situation. If, alternately, everyone acted as I did, that is to say, everyone went for the silent doors even if such an act was breaking commute rules, the result would be large walking jams at building entrances, and, ultimately, late arrival at class. Unless you’re an audiophile, minor hearing loss is of little concern when the alternative is missing a few minutes of lecture.