Every clique has its haunt. Be it the plastics populating the mirror in the girls bathroom in Mean Girls, or the ska punk rockers pounding out their angst in the band room; if there’s a group, there’s a lair.

Lately the Hungry Hawk snack line has been exhibiting the telltale signs of being clique terrain: the smell of Axe body spray heavy in the air, the sounds of raunchy teen conversation beginning to tickle your ears as you near the milling throngs, the brilliance of white sneakers and tees in the blinding morning light. Among the students who are there for the sole purpose of satiating a rumble in their stomachs stands an enclave of hoodsters, young men with the inexplicable habit of donning cumbersome hoods in the noonday sun. They exchange tales, laugh voluminously, and horseplay not three feet away from an already congested snack line.

With a territorial stake comes an intrinsic sense of entitlement. So it should come as no surprise that these indigents wantonly cut lines. It doesn’t matter if you’re large or small, old or young, leave it to these hoodlums to shamelessly wedge themselves right between you and your snack.

These breeches in line etiquette have been an issue that has disconcerted me in all my four years at Tam. Some of the behavior is downright irredeemable and comparable to injustices committed in lines at Disneyland.

While line etiquette is but a fiber in the moral fabric that makes up society’s conventions, it’s our duty as maturing adults to make sure that the linen of our community remains intact. If we chose to start ignoring the small overtures and courtesies that we extend to our peers, the fibers start to unravel..

It is keeping these threads whole that makes it easier to focus on the big things. If just took the toddler-sized strides to uphold these small courtesies, it could usher in bigger courtesies, such as discouraging theft even of the most carelessly strewn valuables in the library, or the pesky “hit and run” on our cars.

Maintaining and monitoring urban environments in a well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism and escalation into more serious crime, curtailing line cutting can help the aforementioned devolution of good behavior. The further reinforcement of the notion of “good behavior” on campus is conducive to a more permanent sense of security and a better overall experience.

Although the natives of the snack line probably never thought that their actions could contribute to the deterioration of the values of the student body as a whole, it’s a possibility that must be acknowledged. Now we don’t need to all become the Carebears ideal of “Polite Pandas,” but we simply have to exercise consciousness when amongst friends and comrades, because we’re all in the same boat, and this boat isn’t going to go anywhere if the rowers can’t work together.