Losing cereal at dinner is for me like losing a friend. All my life I’ve capped off my last meal of the day with a bowl of Golden Grahams, Frosted Flakes or the like. Ice cream? Ha! Chocolate? Keep walking! I wanted cereal: delicious, moderately nutritious cereal. Since as long as I can remember, it’s been my favorite dessert, snack, breakfast, etc., and I was thrilled upon my arrival at Amherst to learn that I could continue to enjoy it whenever I desired. Though I was a little miffed at the lack of Corn Pops, I soon realized that storing Pops in those plastic bins would result in overwhelming staleness and applauded Valentine for their apparent foresight. And so it went: I enjoyed the occasional Frosted Mini-Wheat or Honey Nut Cheerio without a care, and Valentine was happy to oblige. Then came the economic crisis, and, like countless prison wives, I watched in horror as the one I loved was carted off and locked away. Will we ever see cereal at dinner again? Will we ever dance with Tony the Tiger in the pale moonlight? I can only hope.
Losing burger size is for me like watching a friend shrink. OK, so the simile didn’t hold that time, but you get the idea. Reducing the size of my burger means reducing the size of my happiness. As I mentioned last week, I love Val’s burgers. Or should I say “loved”? Though the shrinkage was indeed slight, it had vast effects on the texture of the patty as part of the overall burger experience. Part of what made Val’s burgers so great was that asking for a double ensured a perfect bun:meat ratio. Now that math has been shot to hell, and I’m left wondering if I can even get away with asking for a triple. Perhaps the triple stack will be the salvation of the Valburger, but as of now the Valentine Dining Hall fat-cats have done wrong by the noble city of Hamburg and its proud, industrious inhabitants.
Perhaps the hardest hit of all Val’s stations was the pizza department. The pizza hasn’t simply reverted back to its pre-renaissance form; it has also become a catchall garbage disposal for leftovers that don’t even remotely resemble pizza toppings. Steak Tip Pizza? Honestly Val, you should have more respect for me, and you should certainly have more respect for pizza. Pizza is not supposed to be the weird uncle at the picnic who no one talks about. Pizza is the cool grandpa who lets the kids try his beer. But when you cover it in last night’s failures, it becomes something I can barely stand to smell (kind of like grandpa, actually). I am truly appalled by this feeble attempt to cut costs. I wonder, Val, just how many pieces of Steak Tip Pizza did you manage to pawn off on us? I saw this debacle on display, and I’d be shocked if more than a handful of students were duped into believing in its edibility. Please place rejected leftovers where they belong: the stomachs of the homeless. Maybe beggars can’t be choosers, but I can choose to say, “Take your Steak Tip Pizza and shove it, and give me back my damn cereal!”