Thirty years ago this week, The Amherst Student blared the following headline: "Sabrina Meal Card Hoax Sparks Campus Confusion." A College prankster acting under the name of the "Sabrina," better known as "the campus's self-appointed mirth merchant," decided it would be fun to place fake meal tickets in everyone's mailboxes, including a fake cover letter from the dean telling them to trash their old tickets and replace them with the new ones. The joke meal ticket allowed students "five servings of meat, 10 vegetables and five desserts."

An estimated 75 students followed the instructions, disposing of their old cards in a College-provided drop-off box marked "Faculty Administration." Faced with the hungry hordes, the cafeteria workers had to temporarily allow the "new" meal tickets, while constructing what they called an "idiot list" of the students who bought the prank. A spokesman for the Sabrina, when questioned about the motive of the practical joke, replied simply that it was a way to "get back at Valentine" and that he had never thought that so many students would actually "swallow the bait."

Taking revenge on Valentine, it seemed, was the culmination of years of dissatisfaction. It is hardly surprising that these ill feelings, harbored by countless Amherst students, finally came out in the form of a prank.

Four years prior to the hoax, an editorial was published in The Student clearly describing the sentiments of the student population towards the dining hall. As the author put it, "Man can go to the moon, but he can't long eat in Valentine." The author also complained about Valentine spending money on plastic forks instead of food so that metal forks would not be stolen.

In a particularly memorable quotation included in the same editorial, a student grumbled, "You can get screwed for throwing Valentine food. You can also get screwed if you eat it. 'Green Death' epidemics have occurred. People suffer severe intestinal upset regularly."