Every year during PSAT day, while underclassmen are confined to the walls of one classroom for four excruciating hours bubbling in answers and listening to the monotonous directions of their proctor, seniors are privileged to a senior field trip. For some, it is their first school field trip in their high school experience.

In previous years, seniors have gone to Washington D.C. museums, like the Newseum, or other unique locations. Since the school did not put in an order for buses that could go outside of Loudoun County, this year the senior field trip was to Cobb Theaters to watch Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.

Excited for a break from using my brain, I looked forward to taking the day off. I felt that the trip was a godsend; I figured that I would have no classes, would be able to watch the movie (or nap if it got too boring), and then hop in my car and zoom home where I could spend the evening doing whatever my heart desired since I would have no homework.

Unfortunately, my vision of a day of bliss was quickly shattered.

At the beginning of the day, the senior class crowded into the auditorium and waited to get onto our buses. The administration reminded us to be respectful and properly represent our school and community but, even at nine o’clock in the morning, my peers were rowdy, hyper, and starting to dismiss any direction from authority.

This should have been a sign of the worst to come.

When we arrived at Cobb, chaos ensued. The entire senior class rushed directly to the concession stand. Some students pushed, shoved, or cut in line while others just stood in the cluster of bodies merely because everyone else was there.

Some students were able to get away with stealing concessions due to the chaos of the concessions booth. The booth was an easy target for thievery due to the open shelves of candy, self-serve frozen yogurt machines, and self-serve soda and ICEE machines. With all sorts of distractions, spotting a student slipping away with free a drink and snack was easy to miss.

An optimist could argue that the day could have turned around for the better, but they would have been wrong since the concessions situation was only the beginning of the unfortunate events to come.

Students piled into the movie theater and began talking loudly and texting on their phones. I shook this off, figuring that they would have the common courtesy to stop those activities once the movie started.

Once again, I was wrong.

Not only did people continue talking and texting, some people even left the theater in large groups to go watch another movie, Gravity, in another theater of high school seniors from Tuscarora who were also having their senior field trip.

The people that stayed behind slept, talked, or texted for the duration of the two and a half hour movie. The movie itself was excruciatingly long, and even passionate history teachers seemed to be bored by the film content. Lincoln was just politicians talking in rooms for two hours with one shred of (short-lived) action when Lincoln slaps his son across the face.

Even though the movie was dry, students should still not have left the theater to go watch another movie; they should have suffered in silence with their fellow classmates.

Before the movie had even ended, some students realized that Cobb had already set up tables of lunches for us and quickly rushed down and grabbed their food before everyone else.

By the time the lights had come on, the majority of the sandwiches were gone.

Once people were able to see the theater, one could only see destruction; there was popcorn all over the floor and trash was everywhere.

Already disgusted with the behavior of my classmates, my disgust was multiplied when I took a bite into my lunch that Cobb had provided.

As I went to politely throw away what was inedible, I realized students had ignorantly piled up their trash into trashcans so much that it overflowed. Some people put their trash in the already full trash cans, stood there as they watched their trash fall, and walked away as if nothing happened.

I was so annoyed with my peers, but I was also annoyed at the teachers that did absolutely nothing while all of this was going on. One teacher even yelled at me for picking up people’s trash, claiming that I should “keep moving” so people could get out of the theater.

By the time we got back to school, the fact that I still had to attend two classes did not even phase me. I was so disappointed in a day that had so much potential to be blissful that I could put up with sitting like a zombie for two class periods.

The senior field trip had so much potential to be enjoyable, but somehow it went in the complete opposite direction. I hope that seniors next year not only have a better field trip experience but also realize that just because you are a senior does not give you an excuse to act rude, obnoxious, and barbaric.