A Knight's Fail

Monday. Sweatpants. Stayed up all night writing a paper.
Not pretty.
My general hideousness was interfering with everyday tasks. I left my cardinal card in my room, was late to my first class, and therefore late to breakfast, my favorite meal of the day. My head was starting to hurt from the weight of my ugly hair and I managed to spill coffee all over my already disturbingly sloppy outfit.
As I was walking out of the Pryz, I felt a strange tug on my shoulder. My book bag felt heavier than usual, and I debated taking out some of the … RIIIIIIIP.
I watched all my possessions fall loudly down the main stairs as I mourned the huge hole in my bag that I would never be able to fix because I was too busy thinking about Spongebob Squarepants when my mom tried to teach me how to sew. I tried to gather everything up as quickly as possible, practically running for the glass doors so I could get back to my dorm and kill myself.
A boy walked in front of me and opened the door. I got ready to thank him for helping out little ol’ me by holding the door open for me, but as I rushed through the door … SMACK. Yeah, that’s right - glass door, right in the kisser. Not only did he not hold the door open for me, he ignored my howl of pain as I withered to the ground, still holding all of my textbooks and the model of the solar system I was supposed to hand in for my Literature of Space Odyssey class.
My day had been too awful. My favorite bag had a hole in it. I was wearing coffee-stained sweatpants in public. I was not letting him get away with this. I shoved my way through the doors.
“Excuse me, that is no way to treat a damsel in distress!” I shouted as everyone sitting at the picnic tables turned in unison, ready for a fight.
The boy kept walking, either really oblivious or kind of cruel.
“Helloooo!” I yelled, starting to realize that I was fighting a losing battle. “As a member of the weaker, softer sex I really needed some help with that door back there!” He finally turned around. Probably because I said sex. Ugh.
“Well, sorry,” he muttered, obviously scared that I might get close enough for him to smell me.
“I have to give birth, you know,” I said, maybe kind of sort of getting a little hysterical. “LABOR PAINS! EVER TRIED ‘EM! NOT PLEASANT! The LEAST you could do is hold the door open for me. Chivalry cannot be THAT dead. Puleeze.”
The boy finally looked me in the eye. Oh, he was kind of cute!
“You’re wrong,” he said. “Chivalry is dead as a doornail.”
Okay, never mind. Not cute.
And, dead as a doornail? What does that even mean?
I huffed back to my dorm, wondering if something dead as a door whatsit could be resuscitated. As I approached the glass doors to my building, I caught sight of myself. I didn’t even look like a woman; I looked like a busty thirteen year old boy who is too wild to wear jeans and owns only two pairs of sweatpants that he alternates wearing on a daily basis. No wonder no one wanted to get chivalric with me!
Desperate times called for desperate make-overs. I showered and made sure I used extra fruity-smelling shampoo, only to douse my head in fragrant product before blow-drying the living daylights out of it. I covered up the dark circles under my eyes with about five pounds of Maybelline and tried to make my lips as pouty as possible because nothing says “open the door for me” like Pamela Anderson lips. I mean, with that face, Pam has probably never opened a door for herself in her life. Oh, wait …
I shook off the idea of plastic surgery, put on a pink dress and high heels, and walked as confidently and femininely as I possibly could (which is REALLY hard when you’re suddenly three inches taller than usual) out of my dorm and toward the Pryz.
I reached the CV gate right before a big group of guys did, so I held the gate open for them. The last one out turned around and said, “Thanks!” And I turned red and said, “DAMMIT!” I hadn’t meant to be such a gentleman.
At least I sort of learned something. Chivalry is dead. It died with King Arthur, and that’s kind of okay. We don’t live in a world of dragons and princesses who can’t tie their own shoes. Instead of love letters, we get texts like, “Gurl, u r 2 hot. Luv <3.” And, yeah it’s creepy and the grammar is bad enough to make you want to throw your cell phone in a moat, but we don’t have moats and we don’t have handkerchiefs to give knights because I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a handkerchief and come on a handkerchief is kind of gross anyway because Kleenex are much more sanitary!! IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!
But, luckily, Chivalry has a cousin and his name is Respect. We all get to wear pants, so we should all hold doors open for each other. It shouldn’t be a treat to be in the presence of good manners! But, guys, if you are looking for a date to the Homecoming Dance, it might interest you to know that girls really do notice when you hold the door open for them. Much easier than a joust, huh?