“That’s not a full plate. This won’t count towards the challenge unless you have a full entree and a side. Don’t forget desert.” Meet Rob: fellow contestant, arbitrator and judge.
“Ugh, we still have two more dining halls to go. This was a terrible idea.” I replied as if anything short of a heart attack would prevent me from finishing this exercise in self flaggelation.
Rutgers University has five dining halls. Rob, Chris and I decided to eat a full meal at all five. Back to back to back to back to back. In alphabetical order. Gotta love state schools and no Friday classes. While I have not been able to go into the kitchen to prove it, Rutgers puts laxitives in its dining hall food. Four years of eating dining hall food is all the scientific evidence I need.
Imagine a campus that used to serve barracks for the army. Take the kind of dining hall that would be there, add five quarts of beauracracy to it, mix thoroughly, bake for an hour, then add salt. Voilla: Tillet Dining Hall! The the worst, last and most painful dining hall on our journey.
There’s nothing like sampling the same rubbery chicken meal in 3 different dining halls, except living in a bathroom for 6 hours after finishing such a kamikaze tour. As we felt our stomaches rumble with every bump the bus took back to the dorms, I announced: “Today is the day the music died.”
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Antics from my college days have little to do with comedy except to how I don’t learn from my mistakes. Yesterday I spent the afternoon sampling four different cheese steak places in Philly. Back to back to back to back. It was the second day the music died.
For those that don’t want to suffer the aftermath, Geno’s was better than Pat’s which was better than the random mall steak place by Independance Hall, which was surprisingly better than Jim’s. So in conclusion, don’t gorge yourself and stay away from Jim’s, they have a weird texture to their steak meat.
