This is not an editorial bashing the quality of cuisine presented at Eickhoff Hall’s cafeteria. This is a short piece identifying the people who many encounter each day in the cafeteria, and who make day-to-day College life a little more frustrating.
The fruit salad girls.
For many of us, getting fruit from the fruit salad bowls near the bagel area is a relatively quick and painless process. The general procedure is take a bowl, scoop fruit salad into it, accept the combination of cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple and orange you have received and WALK AWAY. Fruit is usually my first stop in Eickhoff, and I am often immediately halted by a female (it’s only been females) meticulously picking through the fruit salad with her scoop, finding only oranges, or only grapes, or only … something. Unless these girls have a severe food allergy, here’s a heads up – it is all in the same juice and all tastes the same. Scoop and move on.
The bleu cheese dressing shakers.
Admittedly, I am a bleu cheese dressing shaker. I love bleu cheese dressing, and am determined to eat my salad with bleu cheese dressing on it. But the poorly designed bleu cheese container constantly clogs, leaving us to shake … and shake … and shake the container, trying to get a few tasty morsels onto our salads. We look like helpless morons as we do it, and unlike myself, many shakers have not thought to grab a knife or fork, wedge out the bleu cheese chunks and clear the blockage. This is not our fault, though. Sodexho, make the bleu cheese hole larger, for God’s sake!
The friends we make on the grilled chicken line.
Let’s face it, grilled chicken is a popular item for students in Eickhoff and during dinner, the one Sodexo worker manning the grilled chicken station cannot always keep up with the rush. I have been stuck on that line, waiting for as much as 15 minutes for an often burned and immediately dry piece of poultry, and have met a few interesting people. Generally, we talk about how the chicken is taking too long, and how they should do something about it. Can they really do anything about it? No, but it is usually nice to share my frustrations with others. After we finally receive the reward for our patience, we move on until we meet again on the grilled chicken line.
The picky pasta people.
Similarly to the fruit salad girls, the picky pasta people make my life miserable. These are the people who create a line at the pasta station next to the pizza, as they carefully scoop a little of each pasta, a little of each sauce and just the proper sprinkling of parmesan cheese onto their pasta. After timing myself, I have determined that it takes no longer than 10 seconds to accomplish any pasta-related goals at this station. Again, to these people – hurry up and all of that pasta is the same, tastes the same and sucks the same, it is just shaped differently so move along.
Those who partake in the Eickhoff stare-down
Whether you have noticed or not, you have likely been part of an Eickhoff stare-down. This occurs when you already have your tray full of food and someone else, who is trying to decide what to eat, glances at your tray. Only, it’s never just a glance. They look at your food, then look at you, seem to question your character and existence on this earth, then look at your food again and walk away. You feel judged, and a little violated that they looked at your tray. I’m a big fan of the Eickhoff stare-down.
