Worst Conversation of All Time Overheard in FFT Café

A brave survivor shares their story.

Disclaimer: The following anecdotal report has been shared by a University of Iowa student who has suffered trauma from the incident they speak of here. We applaud them for their bravery and courage to speak. We thank them for agreeing to this interview and for trusting us with this sensitive story of theirs by engaging in this dialogue. We ask every reader to please respect their privacy at this time if you know or think you know this victim. The following story is transcribed from an audio recording.

Doily Allergen: How are you feeling today?

Anonymous: I’m feeling better than usual today, feeling ready to share what I have to say with the world.

DA: Good, good. We’ll let you have the floor.

A: I’m a University of Iowa student, and part of the reason why I reached out to the Doily was to spread awareness to students like me in particular about what can sometimes go on at the Food for Thought Café. My day starts like any other day. I go to class, sit in the sun for a bit, then I go to the Main Library. I go to the Café and I order an iced lavender chai latte, I sit down, and that’s when it started. I’m sitting at one of those high chairs that face away from the Café, and that day I just so happened to have forgotten my AirPods, so I couldn’t listen to music to block out people’s conversations while studying.

DA: And what did you exactly hear, if you don’t mind me asking?

A: The first thing I overhear is something about giraffes, about how they have the longest neck in the animal kingdom, and I really like talking about animals, so I turn my head around and there were these two freshman-looking boys sitting by one of the high tables in the middle of the Café. Both white, tall, lanky, I think. I try to go back to studying but, unfortunately, I have a little bit of an eavesdropping habit. I can’t stop listening once I start. The next thing I hear from one of the boys is some sort of joke about how their girl’s neck is longer than a giraffe’s, obviously trying to be funny with some sort of sexual joke. And from there it got worse.

DA: How so?

A: They started talking about how they recently stole one of their friend’s condoms and poked a super obvious, big hole in the condom so their friend would see it the next time he had sex with his girlfriend. They said they did it because they didn’t like their friend’s girlfriend and their friend had recently thought that his girlfriend had been trying to babytrap him, so, they saw this as an opportunity to degrade his girlfriend’s character so he would break up with her.

DA: Wow.

A: Mind you, one of them didn’t even have a backpack. The other one was on his phone. I don’t know why they were even sitting in the library talking about this. Why would they even want to be in the library?

DA: Right.

The Doily reporter cracks a smile. Both the Doily reporter and the anonymous interviewee start laughing together.

A: Oh, that’s hilarious, man. Oh. Anyways, after the babytrap conversation one of them had started talking about this girl he was going to see that night, but what was confusing me was they were talking about a girl who had a different name from his previously aforementioned “girlfriend.” And just about the time I was wondering if I had misheard the girlfriend’s name the other guy had said, “But what about [REDACTED]?” And that’s when it all clicked. He was cheating on his girlfriend.

DA: Daaammmnnnnnnnn…

A: Right? Apparently he was going to the gym with this girl and telling his girlfriend that he was going to the gym with a friend, and that after he was done with the gym he was just going to his friend’s house to do whatever and hang out. I know this because the other guy had said, “She still think you’re going to the gym?” It’s like they reinforce each other, these little cockroaches, they latch onto each other and reinforce their mistreatment of people while simultaneously disrespecting themselves and the world around them as well. Their conversation was so captivating–it was like a car crash. I couldn’t stop listening in the same way you can’t look away.

DA: And what was the moment when you realized you had to drop your studying and completely focus on their conversation?

A: Probably when they were talking about the house party they went to last week. They were talking about some girl throwing up all over one of their new white t-shirts and how the host had sent the girl home for getting a little bit of throw-up on his shoes. Poor girl. And that reminds me, right after the guy who had gotten vomited on told that story he said, “I’m wearing that white t-shirt right now, man,” and the other guy replies, “I mean, looks clean to me,” and they both started laughing. Bro. I mean, if you clean it, you clean it but how was he able to stop the vomit from staining the shirt so quickly? That’s what I wanna know. He must have ran home and run it under some cold water and put on some baking soda real quick. That’s dedication right there.

DA: Mhm. So, why exactly was this the worst conversation of all time, then?

A: Let me tell you why. It’s because I couldn’t get any work done. The conversation was filled with so much bullshit, so much gossip, that I simply couldn’t get any work done. I had a rhetoric essay due that day, too, and as a result of that conversation I had to turn it in late and my grade suffered because of that. That can’t be happening. That’s why it was the worst conversation ever, because why are you talking about this type of stuff in the library when you know full well that people are trying to get work done without using noise-cancelling headphones to block out the noise. Some people like the ambience of the library, okay, I mean, I’m not one of them because I listen to music when I work, but I know some people who do.

DA: Oh! And I think that’s all the time we have for today. Thank you for sharing your story with us.

The anonymous interviewee was then grabbed from behind by two muscular Doily staff members and dragged out, screaming, kicking and shouting in the process, saying, “What happened? I thought I was in the middle of an interview here?” We realized that we had been bamboozled, however. While the conversation may not have been traumatic in the traditional sense, it certainly may have been traumatic to the interviewee’s grades in the sense that their focus was diverted from what was important in the moment: their schoolwork. Remember to bring noise-cancelling headphones or to go to a secluded, quiet area next time you study at the library, or you might end up like our interviewee: gossipy, nosy, unfocused, and failing all their classes (yes, we did a background check).