Editor’s Note: The following column is satirical. It is meant for humorous purposes. All interviews and individuals are fictitious.
It is about a month and a half into the semester at the University of Massachusetts, and many students have finally settled in on campus. Many students have also settled in off-campus. So many students. Like, a lot of students.
To returning students, one thing is clear: there are way too many people on campus. Everywhere we turn, there are hordes of students. Long lines in the library, lecture halls overflowing with students and grab-and-go lines spanning the continent. There are dorm rooms being turned into triples, quadruples, quintuples and so on – and that’s just the beginning. Freshmen are already annoying, who decided we needed more of them?
This overload of students is hitting dining halls especially hard.
Dining halls are struggling to keep up with the enormous appetites of thousands of college students. Hampshire Dining Commons has started watering down its condiments to make them last longer.
At Worcester Dining Commons, employees are putting leftovers from people’s used plates back on to the serving dishes. Franklin Dining Commons is doing what it usually does: undercooking the food and serving only corn to the vegetarians and vegans. We don’t know what Berkshire Dining Commons is doing, but we must assume it’s bad because many students refuse to step foot in the dining hall.
Dining halls are even resorting to monitoring people’s food intake. Worcester employees have started to take food off people’s plates if they are deemed to have too much. They are also pretending to scoop food onto students’ plates in an effort to save the minimal food they have.
“I handed my plate to the worker and asked for tofu, but she just mimed putting food on my plate,” explained Berg Shire. “The plate was empty when I handed it to her so I don’t know how she thought I wouldn’t notice.”
The bottom line is this: some students must go. Let’s be honest, not all of us are winners. UMass can easily afford to part with some students. I’m sure we can all think of students who we would prefer to have removed from campus – I can think of at least 20.
Worcester has already begun to prepare for the imminent apocalypse. Workers at the dining hall have gotten rid of all the silverware except for the knives. It appears they are prepared for students to fight to the death for tables and food.
I spoke with sophomore Franky Lynn to find out how students are preparing for battle.
“I have started bringing my own knives to dining halls. I always have one on me just in case,” Lynn explained. I left Lynn as she was getting ready to go into Worcester. She pulled out a jousting spear, fastened what appeared to be a homemade shield to herself, striped paint onto her face and walked in.
Worcester is not the only dining hall working to fix the student overload problem. Franklin has set up a system of musical chairs to decide who gets to sit and who must go. Every 30 minutes, diners must stand up and walk around the dining commons, and when the music stops, chaos ensues as everyone rushes to chairs. If you don’t get a chair, you must leave. The system is working perfectly so far, with the only notable exception being that many staff members have been let go because they couldn’t find chairs.
Every dining hall must step up. If we want a chance of getting food, we must bring it back to the days of survival of the fittest. In the meantime, let’s just hope there’s a storm that gets rid of freshmen and Isen-bros.
Asha Baron can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @ashajbaron.
