Taking a Saturday evening off of the Butler grind? We doubt it. And unsurprisingly, neither are the Butler-ites—the elusive species of passersby, tablemates, and denizens you’ve come to love/hate. With our newest Butler-themed feature, we bring you meticulously researched anthropological profiles of these shifty creatures from the guy who smells like weed to the girl who will mooch indefinitely. So take a break from your Orgo textbook (okay, Dan Brown novel), and join Concerned Citizen Conor Skelding as he paints a poignant portrait of that person you know only by his/her abandoned stack of books. 

Torn out page from Louise McCune's very private and personal Butler diary (tear-drop stains whited-out).

Meet the over-estimator. He or she (there’s no way of knowing, really) is also identified by Butler Archetype Specialists as “mountain of books, leaves all day.”

“Wow,” the over-estimator is thinking, as he/she spreads out literally dozens of books (recently procured from the Stacks), a cup of Oren’s, and a selection of highlighters. “It’s only 10 am and I’m already settled in Butler. What an early start! I think I’ll step out. Just one cigarette.”

Wrong. One cigarette, two coffees, a quick phone-call to a long-distance boyfriend or girlfriend, and nine more cigarettes later, this person is nowhere to be seen. Sure, an early arrival and extensive set-up efforts are commendable, but you can’t help wondering, as you peer through the mountain of textbooks and hardcover novels left behind, whether he or she has ever really turned a page. It’s lunchtime though, and by now you give this stranger the benefit of the doubt. John Jay is only a stone’s throw away from the Ref Room, after all.

Flash forward five hours. You see a shadow out of the corner of your eye—is that the over-estimator? Crouching behind his/her books? Actually working? Maybe he or she has returned to finally crank out a few pages.

But before you know it, the creature is gone once again, leaving only stacks of books, a coffee stained napkin, and a note that says “Pls don’t touch,” with a tiny sketch of a smiley face.

Over-estimator, we hardly knew ye.