There are more pressing matters at hand, however. This semester, your YCMP swipes are worth $7.25. It’s quite the change from the semester before that, when their value was $6.75. What about the semester right before that? They were only worth $6.25. It doesn’t take an economist to see that the values of your swipes are rising faster than an elderly woman with a winning bingo card. This won’t mean a whole lot to the demographic of people who order on-campus food, yet somehow can’t spell the letters Y-C-M-P in the right order. I’ll bet you a dozen donuts for a dish of dumplings that you eat food, and are subsequently very much a part of this. I hate to get global with my editorials, but I have to say this. The fact that our economy is up cripple creek on a crap raft is partly responsible. Forget thinking about whether or not you’ll have a job after you graduate with that psychology degree – you’ll have the rest of your life to worry about walking dogs. The economy is actually affecting you as a student at UMass, right now. My point is that the cost of our food is flying skyward faster that the library’s broken elevators. When YCMP swipes gain value, the costs of each food item go up with it. If you repeatedly find yourself in line at the Pita Pit or the Hatch and are consistently paying with cash, you might want to start thinking about bank loans and interest rates. It also wouldn’t hurt you to consider investing in a wheelbarrow, because pretty soon that wallet isn’t going to cut it. You might even find yourself becoming a modern day Jean Valjean, faced with 20 years for having to steal vegan muffins and seven-layer bars from the Worcester D.C. Quelle dommage! If you do find yourself the proud owner of a handful of YCMP “flex swipes,” you’re in the clear for now; you’ve already paid for them. If you’re thinking about chucking your meal plan out the car window for next semester because your cooking instincts were inspired by the stylings of Rachel Ray, you may as well never dine in these parts ever again. Daily trips to Arigato Sushi in downtown Amherst will soon be more practical than a Blue Wall tuna sub. While surfing the UMass Dining Services blog, I caught a couple more potential reasons for why we’re paying more each semester for our food. In a Nov. 14 blog entry titled, “Help us to help you to keep the cost down,” Ken Toong, manager of dining services at UMass, writes that food costs per meal are up “16 percent compared to last year.” Statistics suggest that the average amount of food wasted at the dining commons is half a pound per plate. I’m not going to go into a tirade about starving children in Mongoloturkistan, but I will suggest that this is a two-sided problem. Here are some potential solutions. If you’re going to spend some money on food, I would recommend going to the all-you-can-eat boneless wing buffet every Monday and Tuesday evening at the Hangar. At $6 a head, it’s well underneath the value of a meal swipe. As an added bonus, it also represents a nice compromise between starvation and starting your own food-based landfill. I would also recommend looking through the UMass calendar of events for socials of any kind. Most people who run organizational meetings have local pizza shops on speed dial, and they’re always looking for people to swing by and see what they’re all about. You may not be a serious contender for a spot in the Mexican future astronauts club, but hey – food speaks every language. As for me, I’ve got about a month of school left, and I’m trying my hardest to save my last few YCMP swipes. So how about it, anybody want to swipe me into the D.C.? Devon Courtney is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].