Editorial: Top 10 things you’ll find lurking on Pitt’s campus

It should have been a shock when authorities were notified of an alligator lurking by the river in Lawrenceville last night, but it really wasn’t. This is the seventh gator of the year found roaming in Pittsburgh, according to the Humane Animal Rescue Center, located in Homewood. An alligator hasn’t been spotted in Oakland — yet — though there are plenty of other things lying low, or maybe not so low, around campus. Here are the top 10 things you’re most likely to find lurking on Pitt’s campus.

10. ROTC recruiters

The emails are lurking in your inbox, too.

9. Bizarre trash in South Oakland

It’s basically a museum of modern art — or maybe modern garbage — on a Sunday morning. A picturesque Gatorade bottle placed in a shrub, an entire jar of queso smashed on the sidewalk with a bag of chips — we think we’ve seen it all every time. Until the next weekend, when we realize that we haven’t.

8. Students running after the 75 bus

It only comes every 20 minutes. It’s also one of the only buses that seems to consistently arrive on time, and so we always miss it. The “for your safety, please do not chase the bus” sign isn’t enough to make us wait another 20 minutes to get to Trader Joe’s.

7. Club promoters in the Towers Lobby

Laugh all you want, but their lurking works. We signed up for multiple random clubs as first-year students in the Towers Lobby because we wanted free candy, or a pen that writes really smoothly.

6. Students crying

It might be a first-year who lost yet another dollar to the Towers dryers, or it might be a student whose chemistry exam didn’t go as planned. It could be an English major realizing that they still need five literature classes to graduate, or someone who’s so stressed, they don’t even know what they’re stressed about. There’s beauty in the unknown. College is hard. We all need a good cry sometimes.

5. Tuition raises

The pain of that hard hit is still lurking in our bones, to say the least.

4. Old copies of The Pitt News fluttering in the wind

They have to be out there somewhere. We love some old news.

3. People you went to high school with

There are almost 20,000 undergraduate students on Pitt’s main campus. You rarely run into your favorite service dog in training, but you’re going to see the one guy from high school who you don’t want to see three times a week. That’s just the way the world works.

2. The date who ghosted you

Or maybe the date that you cut off communication with. We can’t decide which is more awkward. But it wouldn’t be spooky season if we didn’t see a few ghosts lurking around campus.

1. JuJu Smith-Schuster

He frequents campus. We’re not complaining, though.