Clark is home for all current chargers and charger alumni. It is the good kind of home that does not have a mortgage to pay or tigers in the backyard (not anymore at least). It does, however, have one particularly strange wing.

 

The 200 hall has been an absurd labyrinth since 1965. Mrs. Reagh, who is in charge of the facilities at Clark, did not even recognize the floor plan of the 200 hall at first without the room numbers labeled.

 

The honeycomb floor plan is not even the strangest part. The rooms are not numbered in any noticeable pattern.

 

There are 43 classrooms and two workrooms in the 200 hall. Logically, 212 borders 238, and 202, the only room inexplicably split into A and B,borders 241.

 

Mrs. Reagh said, “I don’t know what happened with the labeling of those room numbers. I would like to ask the person responsible if he was kidding.”

 

She took a two-minute pop quiz on labeling as many room numbers as possible in the 200 hall. Mrs. Reagh has worked at Clark for nine years, so she at least deserves some extra credit (take it yourself if you think you can get more than five).

 

Mrs. Reagh, who is fluent in Spanish, said that the map of the 200 hall is an encrypted message from the Aztecs. Likely it has something to do with the end of the world.

 

A number of students,even seniors at Clark still do not know their way around the 200 hall.

 

Senior Alex Dumitru said, “I got lost once on a quest to find room 217, but I don’t think it exists.”

 

Although 217 does exist, it is most certainly not next to 216.

 

Freshmen are the worst victims of the room number mess. Many arrive to class late and are swept up by the tardy broom.

 

Student Council, the same group who was kind enough to put up direction signs in the 200 hall at the beginning of the year, replaced those signs with scary decorations for the haunted homecoming theme.

 

This scared freshmen to a whole new level as they wandered the senseless maze of 200s. Some students resorted to a fairy tale solution to the problem, dropping bread crumbs on the hallway floor like Hansel and Gretel.

 

While this navigation device may be more useful than Siri or a compass (they go haywire around 234), it is bringing unintended consequences along with it. This reaction, similar to the butterfly effect, is known as the pigeon effect.

 

The school pigeons, which everyone knows are supposed to fly around the cafeteria, are expanding their range into the 200 hall, and it is not because of global warming. Bread crumb trails may help orient students in themaze, but pigeons have migrated there early for the abundance of crumbs to peck at.

 

Nothing is scarier than trying to navigate the 200 hall alone, turning around, and being face-to-face with Columbia livia, an invasive speciesand vector for bird flu.

 

Mrs. Reagh said that from now on students caught dropping crumbs on the floor will face the wrath of Head Custodian Cesar.

 

Basically, there is no good way to figure out where one is going in the 200 hall. It’s a senseless maze of rooms that are numbered to drive students insane, and tardy victims of this cruel joke cannot even find their way to the dean’s office. Still, the senseless maze is home.