Masuk Free Press

A hall, B hall, C hall, D hall, E hall, G hall, H hall, I hall, J hall, K hall… what happened to F hall? 

The F hall is missing, but why? Could the hallway be saved for a future expansion? Did it used to exist? Did somebody forget about it in planning? What happened to it? Until now, these questions could all be possibilities for the missing F hallway at Masuk High School. Currently, students gather and use hallways A through hallway K. Every letter is there, except for the letter F, a strange anomaly in the pattern of hallways used in the school. What could the reasoning for this strange, missing hallway possibly be? 

“It could be that schools don’t like Fs,” Masuk sophomore Zachary McCarthy shared. 

“The F hallway could have a physiological and social impact on students, being the hallway that has classes where many students fail. Both have bad things, F-you fail. Now here’s the thing – we know the L. We know what loser is. They [the teachers and administrators] don’t.” McCarthy explained. For those who are not aware, giving someone ‘the L’ is calling them a loser. “They are thinking – L – a letter – they would probably go with it.” McCarthy added.

“I’m going to be honest, I didn’t even notice until right now,” said Jaylene Gonzales, a Masuk High School Senior. “I feel like it’s kind of peculiar, why not just go in order?” 

According to the National Institutes of Health, humans are exceptionally good at finding patterns in everyday life. Human intelligence has the ability to learn, perceive, adapt and create reason to problems the brain finds. The missing F hall breaks this pattern the human brain noticed and sticks out after being discovered. Additionally, Humans also have the ability to create new patterns, ones that might not have been noticed before, explaining how some students were unaware of the missing F hallway until they were asked about it. Humans also have the ability to represent knowledge about a concept. The missing hallway is a concept, as it is not in the real world. These new patterns may exist or not exist in the real world, such as the missing F hallway. 

Masuk senior, Gloria Gutierrez Munoz said “I didn’t know they didn’t [have an F hall], maybe they just forgot.”

“I think it was planned, and they decided to go against the original plan,” said Masuk sophomore Aiden Acosta-Garcia.“Maybe they had a few rooms labeled F hall, but later merged it with another hall. I’ve thought about it before.”

Students said that the F hall might have existed before, was forgotten by decision makers, or that it was left out due to psychological or social reasons that an F hall could possibly be taken out of context as a ‘fail hall, but what is the real reason for this strange anomaly? After searching far and wide for the answer, one of Masuk’s Assistant Principals Lisa Peterson finally revealed the truth.

“The reason is that when we make maps, a lot of the time the print is small,”said Peterson “E and F can be easily confused if a line gets blurry.” 

“Now this is just a rumor, but I heard 30 years ago that when the hallways were being decided, a teacher said, ‘An F is a failing grade, we don’t want any classroom to have a stigma of that class being in the F hallway and everybody fails.’ But the logical answer is that E and F can sometimes get confusing.”  Peterson added.

“[If we were to add an additional hallway], We would probably just go to the [L hallway].” Peterson said.

“I don’t think F deserves the disrespect.” said Masuk junior, John Anzalone. “I think there should be an F hall.” 

So, the mystery of the missing F hall is over. The lore behind the mysterious hallway is simply that the letter F looks too much like the letter E on a map, and can get confused at quick glances at the map. Does F hall deserve to be banished to the shadow realm, or should it be brought up for discussion in the inevitable need of a future hallway?