The Virginia Informer

The “New” Caf: The saga continues

By Clifton Martin, Staff Writer

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            Recent complaints relating to the meal plans and dining halls on campus have inspired me to publicly address the students’ concerns. It has now been over a month since my first visit to the “new” dining hall. Now that I have fully recovered, I feel the need to share my experience.

            After a few days of blowing money on the Cheese Shop, it finally came time try the campus food. The Caf, as we have so affably named the Commons, was gutted and revamped to offer us “upscale foods from around the world prepared fresh, right before your eyes”--and that information was just in a pamphlet! As I arrived at the “new” Caf, I heard comments such as, “They have booths now!” and “Stacy’s back!” Of course, now I notice that no comment concerned the food. Only a pamphlet, which cannot eat, had mentioned the quality of the food.

            So a few friends and I decided to meet outside the Caf for dinner. I didn’t mind nearly twisting my ankle on non-handicap friendly, pebble walkways as I neared the entrance, because nothing could spoil the excitement of the crowd. I felt like a kid in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, waiting to be escorted off into a land of glorious food by little people in uniform. We were nearing the doors when I realized I had not signed up for a meal plan. I assumed the always friendly staff would let me in just this once, but as the rest of the evening was to prove, my expectations were just too high to please. I was forced to pay with my own money:

           “I’m sorry sweetie.”

           “Oh that’s fine, I guess. How much?”

           “That’ll be $11.78.”

           “What the fuck did you just say?”

           That’s right. Eleven dollars and seventy-eight cents. That’s the cost of an appetizer at the Trellis or a case of beer or a gallon of gas; but one meal at a college cafeteria? The only way this mathematical oddity could conceivably make sense was if this food was as good as the pamphlet said it would be. Did I mention pamphlets cannot eat?

           The pamphlet told us that this renovated dining facility was “modeled after a European marketplace.” I have been to Europe, and I never saw a marketplace like this. What the pamphlet should have said was that this dining facility was “modeled after a European marketplace that stood at the beach during the Normandy Invasion.” 

I walked in to the cries of frightened students pleading for directions. Dining hall managers were running around shouting. Cooks stared into an abyss looking aloof, as if they knew this chaos would be the last great event of their lives. Perhaps they could hear “Taps” playing. A desperate girl limped toward me, tearfully asking me a question I was incapable of answering: “Please, where is the water? I need water!” I was waiting for policemen on horseback to come riding in with tear gas.

            But as in all desperate times, we must fight on. So I gathered all my strength and forced my way through the mob. Damn it, I paid $11.78 and I was not going down without my dinner. So began my quest for food. What treasures awaited me? I went from line to line searching for the “upscale” food the pamphlet promised. Yet every new line seemed to be the same as before. Whoever designed this place forgot that a lot of people who owned hedge mazes were sometimes lost for days and then discovered dead. I was lost in a fucking cafeteria. I was separated from my friends and I had no way of knowing where they were. Now I had the possibility of certain doom on my hands. But I fought on.

            After several loops in the spinning labyrinth of despair, I somehow managed to salvage something that resembled food.  Now for Mission Impossible 2: a place to sit down. But what I saw next only led to greater anguish. All of those talked-up booths and modern chairs were full of tired and bitter students, echoing the injured of a great battle. I swear I saw someone checking the pulse of the girl who asked me for water. Then, by some miraculous act of God, I found my friends. We ran to each other. We had survived.

“But wait, where’s John?” My two other friends looked down at their trays, the same empty stares of the cooking staff, and then one of them spoke, “John didn’t make it.”

            We gathered what was left of our troubled spirits and then chanced upon a table that had been abandoned. We ate in silence. Whether it was out of respect for our fallen friend or in wonder of why God chose us to get this far, I do not know. Actually, it was probably because someone at the next table said exactly what was on our minds as we ate: “Wait a minute! This is the same shit they served us last year.” Indeed it was.

            So after investing $11.78, losing a close friend, and witnessing the greatest debacle Williamsburg has seen since the Civil War, I was still eating shit. Sure, there were new surroundings, and though they were not Oompa Loompas, I was being served by people wearing really cool hats. But these in no way made up for the ultimate disappointment. Though, after all I experienced that evening, I do feel stronger now, maybe even a little wiser. On a broader scale the “new” Caf taught me a valuable lesson about the people we meet in life: No matter how someone’s appearance changes, just like this dining facility, they can still be full of shit.

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