I am panicking. No, not I am not scared of dying young without realizing my personal potential, nor failing to make my contributions to the space program or the human genome project, nor fear itself, I am scared of eating. Last Thursday October 17th, a date that will live in infamy, every eatery in Mallinckrodt center was closed due to a “failure in the water filtration system.” Fear not, I ate at Holmes Lounge. However, many of my colleagues went hungry. Confused, they simply bounced between the Bakery and the downstairs area like a well-played ball in a Pinball machine. They turned to the Kosher Cart for sustenance but even the Rabbi’s powers were no match for The faulty filter. Hava Naglia Mosha. Lovely Bris, wasn’t it? I even saw people confusedly standing in the Gargoyle where no food has been served since the spring of ’74. The year of love, hate, peace and war. And a decent ham sandwhich.
I had first noticed the problem on Wednesday. On my way to lunch after my one o’clock class I noticed that the usual crowd of “fountain rats,” who gather around the Bowles Plaza fountain to relax in the soothing sounds of the cascading white water and to escape from the concrete and metal monotony of the campus, were not there. In fact the fountain is so naturalistic that it attracts wildlife from as near as Forrest Park to as far as Sierra Leone. These include drowned bees, algae, and other strains of single-celled organisms. The following is a direct quote from Magik Mark: “We are lucky, fortunate, and pleased to be able to share the Hilltop Campus with the unique wildlife from our neighbors in Sierra Leone.” It is such a beauty, that I make it a point in my day to stop by the blue water and breathe in the fresh air. On Wednesday, the water had been drained. That set off the first alarm.
Downstairs in the food court, the fountain drinks were out of order. While my experience in this country and abroad shows that this is usually due to a lack of syrup, cafeteria employees who chose to remain anonymous (Mary in the red sweater) told me that they had “barrels up the wazoo!” The problem in this case was a lack of pure water. The pipeline into the Mallinckrodt kitchen directly from the French Alps had been sabotaged, that was clear. What wasn’t was what had precipitated the change between Wednesday and Thursday. Was this a matter of human health? If The filter had been faulty on Wednesday, and The filter somehow affects food, then by the chances of property one would expect the cafeterias to be closed on Wednesday as well. This is where I worry.
When I stopped by the impromptu barbeque that food services threw on Thursday I saw the same man who had happily served my roast chicken the day before happily serving sausages for a hungry crowd. The man was quite happy. When I inquired as to why Mallinckrodt has been taped off, he responded with: “Do you want your food to be raw, fatty, bacteria-infested meat?” I blinked. Twice. “Umm.no.” His point was quite clear.
Needless to say the entire event raised doubts about the recent food service ranking. For those to whom this fact was not obvious by the quality of their daily meals, the Princeton Review recently ranked Washington University’s Dining Services as #1 in the country. Using the same mathematical models employed by the Princeton Review I have concluded that students must not eat in schools ranked 9 and below. Survival must rely on vending machines. Furthermore, since I had already developed the system, I took the liberty of ranking Wash U in other categories. Did you know our wildlife ranks # 3 in the nation, that the percentage of our campus that has been deforestated by the administration ranks # 17, that our Bris’ rank # 2 and that our rodeo clown training is #43. Shameful.
Indeed vending machines are perhaps a viable option on our Hilltop Campus as well. Yet, you know what they say about survival: “Don’t panic. Don’t catch that terrible disease of ‘Give-up-itis.” But you know what else they say: “you can go for days without food but you can’t go long without water.” Or milk. Or cookies. But yet, what do I know, I’m not from this country.