The Fear of The Student Center Stairs

It’s mid-December in oh-so-chilly Saint Joseph, Michigan. As 7:40 approaches on a Tuesday morning, you climb out of the warm haven created in your car's interior. Getting out of your car, you try not to wipe out on black ice in the parking lot while enduring the lake-effect wind, imagining your upcoming spring break trip to keep you warm under a t-shirt and some jeans. The warm gust of heat hits you hard as you step into the archway. Before going to your first hour, you decide to hit up the breakfast bar for some apple juice and a muffin– the most direct way there is through the main staircase. You debate taking the trek down the stairs, afraid of the crowds flowing up and down and the lack of traction on the slippery stairs. You go for it, only to realize three seconds in that you have landed on your ass, slipping down each and every step: you are now St. Joe’s newest victim of the student center stairs.

Many tragedies have occurred on those very stairs– some would say haunted, others will say cursed, but what we do know for sure is that the track record of people embarrassingly slipping or tripping is rising exponentially. Meghan Meier, 12, recalls when she fell down the stairs. 

“I remember tripping and falling into a teacher, and they quit the next day. They screamed when we made contact. I don’t know why.”

Theories have spawned why these stairs cause so many casualties each year: the school itself waxing the stairs, past grades spraying Pam for the rest of the grades to wipe out, or another third party– who knows? All I can recommend is for you to take the three-minute detour and take some other way of getting down there.