He or she has plagued you since the second grade. Sitting a few rows in front of you.

Guaranteed the inside of their desk was in tip-top shape.

One pencil sharpened in his or her hand, the other unsharpened in all its yellow, unbitten glory and on the desk in case of an emergency.

The emergency you always fantasized to inflict (by eighth grade you started fantasizing about other things).

That one time when the teacher went into the hallway to accept the morning milk order was your one chance to walk up to him or her and intact some damage. Be it verbal or physical.

“Hey, loud mouth,” you’d say. “Shut your trap before I make like Clint Eastwood and shut it for you.” Followed by taking his or her just-in-case-my-other-pencil-breaks unsharpened pencil, picking it up with one bare hand, looking at it, looking at the other person, snapping it in half, giving he or she back one half of the pencil, taking the other half and saying, “My pencil just broke. I’ll be needing this.” And then you walk back to your seat. Now granted, at eight years old you probably wouldn’t say something that clutch, and you probably wouldn’t know who Clint Eastwood is, but let’s pretend your parents had HBO and you didn’t have to watch it through the fuzz.

Annoying loud talker has plagued you since the second grade. You thought you escaped it once you got to high school but it just got worse.

Sure, there were the people who talked too much in class and answered every question, but at least they raised their hands. Chances are, they probably said something of note.

But not annoying loud talker.

Annoying loud talker would shine in situations like, and not exclusively, the following. Teacher would purport a fact. A little known fact that was relatively shocking to the class as a whole. Many “hhhmms” and “wows” would be sighed by the congregation 16-year-old Abercrombie clones. However, you could always count on annoying loud talker to act like he or she knew what was up. He or she would sit there and nod enough so everyone could notice that he or she had a functioning neck and say something like “Oh yeah, I knew that.”

Then you’d work your neck in a similar fashion, throwing it back, rolling your eyes, shaking your head and getting annoyed. Because that’s what annoying loud talker does to you.

Annoying loud talker has finally made it to college. He or she is in your class – right now – as we speak. You know the one, the one who answers your teacher’s rhetorical questions. The one who doesn’t raise his or her hand to speak. The one whose number of comments you mark down in your notebook just so you can go home and tell your roommate, ‘So-and-so’ had 23 ridiculous (or a word rhyming with clumb-glass) comments today.”

In a classroom, the most wretched sound is arguably a scratching of the chalkboard. Rumor has it people in their 60s are awoken in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with memories of the morbid music of a screeching chalkboard.

Almost as chilling is the effect annoying loud talker brings to the proverbial table. He or she can do some serious damage to your ears and back.

By day two of class you become aware that an annoying loud talker has found his or her way into the lecture hall. But what you can not prepare for is that feeling. That feeling you get every time you hear his or her voice. It’s perpetual. You become forever annoyed at the mere sound of his or her voice.

It could be something as simple as, “Hey, how are you?” But it’s still going to cause your shoulders to raise, a bit of frustration to rise and your ire to continue. Annoying loud talker has found you.

In these national times of tolerance and good cheer, I say resist.

It is still OK to hate annoying loud talker.

It always will be.

Dave O’Neil is the Lantern sports editor. He has yet to answer a rhetorical question. E-mail him at [email protected]. Or e-mail [email protected] to remind Jen that Al Gore lost by 517 votes.