Friday, January 19, 2007

Acronyms and Home Repair

The long-awaited renovations to the Student Union are now taking place, right, um, in the middle of the school year. Why this couldn't happen during the summer is anyone's guess, but now the options for campus food are pretty slim. The WPE [worst pizza ever] as offered by Villa Pizza, complete with SSSS [Surly Soviet-Style Service]; I once asked for a specific slice of pizza rather than the obviously worse for wear piece that they were ready to offer me. "This is the piece that's on the spatula," was the response I got. I was starving and late for class, so I took it after having wasted too much time in their line. The time before that, I wanted to know how much a stromboli was. I'd looked and couldn't see the price. The undergrad serf behind the counter was in the process of looking up the price for me when one of the higher-ups interrupted him and said to me curtly, "The price is on the board," and walked off with a thumb gesturing at the lit menu board I was just looking at. They're awfully smug for being folks that can't do pizza right. And it's pretty hard to not get pizza right. Regarding the other possible options, there's the Sweet Shop in its newer remodeled state as a sterile homage to the 50's diner, with endlessly looping Beach Boys and Supremes, and Starbucks. A makeshift convenience store-type thing has been set up in one of the study rooms in the basement, but I've kinda outgrown the "candybar-coffee-doughnut-and-chewing-gum" diet. To give them credit, they do have a salad bar, but pickins are mighty slim. The downstairs hallway is cut off, and the age-old railroad station theme, which was age-old when I was an undergrad 35 million years ago back in the Cretaceous period, appears to be on its way out. I got this shot before they walled everything off. If the trend continues, this will probably house other healthy restaurants such as Burger King, KFC, and MacDeaths. Mass-produced meat, anyone?

2 comments:

Lydia said...

You should see what the Stone Cafeteria does to pizza. More like melted plastic, and it also comes with a side of SSSS. Great stuff, isn't it?

Kristen said...

Is the Brad's sandwich shop still across the street? They used to have decent fare... The union here is all fast-food stuff too now. Well, I should say fast-food-style, as the service isn't very speedy!