Mexican Lasagna

When I first arrived at college, I enjoyed meeting new people, taking new classes, joining new clubs and organizations, and living my own independent life. What enchanted me most, however, was the dining experience. Three times a day, I was allowed to walk into a veritable restaurant with dozens of options and go hog wild. My favorite part was the endless amount of soda I could drink.

This actually caused me some serious problems. Lack of sleep in the dorms, coupled with my intense love for carbonated beverages, lead to my habit of drinking coke all day every day. When I wasn't sucking down the sugary, bubbly, caffeinated mead, I was running to and from the bathroom. This unsustainable lifestyle caught up with me one day in the computer lab. I was typing a paper when suddenly my chest felt something like this:

This kinda kept happening. I called my doctor/cousin to ask if I was going to die.

Cutting back immediately cured the problem:

But caffeine wasn't the only thing that brought me joy in the college dining experience. I all but fell in love with a dish called the Mexican Lasagna. It was so deliciously unhealthy that eating it made me feel blissfully alive and peacefully dead at the same time. Each day that I entered the commons and saw it on the menu was like Christmas and Cinco de Mayo all rolled into one.

Then, one fateful day, the Mexican Lasagna disappeared. It vanished from the menu. Even more disturbingly, no one was talking about it. There were no protests. No riots. No marching in the streets (really there was just one street but we could have marched in it).

I went into a state of physical and emotional withdrawal.

Every Monday of my sophomore year, I sent the same email to the people in the commons.

By the fall of junior year, I had all but given up hope. I still sent the emails as a matter of principle, but my heart wasn't in the fight anymore. Time had dulled my fury and my desire. Then, one cold and rainy Monday in September, I got a call from a strange and mysterious voice.

"Get down to the commons. Now."

The student didn't identify himself, but he sounded excited. Imagine my elation when I looked down at the menu. Mexican Lasagna!

Don't get excited. This story doesn't have a happy ending. One week after the return of the M.L., the commons put out a student survey asking for everyone's favorite and least favorite dishes. Mexican Lasagna was hands-down voted the school's least favorite dish and consequently was banished from the menu forever. It wasn't even a multiple choice deal. Among the hundreds of dishes served, students thought to write it down in overwhelming majority.

It's a cruel, cruel world.