Dear Diary,

I don’t know if any college or university dining hall actually serves decent food. In fact to most school dining halls, food is definitely a four letter word. At least it was to my university.

Our establishment of “less than fine cuisine” was named “La Posada.” But those of us who had the “dubious honor” of having to eat there, renamed it “Lapa Slopa.” And believe me, it lived DOWN to its name.

At every meal, people would peer down at the serving table trying to identify each strange looking concoction.

“That must be the 'such and so'. And that must be the 'whatever', but what exactly is that....STUFF?”

Finally some brave person would ask, “What is that?”, and the serving person would stare at the conglomeration and cautiously poke it with a spoon. (Well, it looked like it could come to life at any moment and start poking back.) “I don’t know,” was the answer accompanied by a distinct wrinkling of the person’s nose.

“In that case, I’ll have a salad.”

Hey, we weren’t stupid enough to eat anything that DEFIED identification!

Apparently after getting tired of always hearing "What is that?", the dining hall personnel began posting a menu on the wall. Now they heard comments such as, “That must be the spaghetti and meatballs--yeah right! And that must be the meatloaf (in what horror movie). So that must..be...the.....goulash? YUCK! I’ll have a salad.”

Finally someone walked into the director's office at “Lapa Slopa” and dropping a tray loaded with this...food onto his desk, demanded, “Would you eat this stuff?”

“No, but I don’t have to.”

Oh, great. We were expected to PAY for something that this employee wouldn’t eat for FREE! If it was true that you get what you pay for, then we were obviously doing something wrong. We thought about boycotting the dining hall, but we’d already paid to eat there for the semester and as college students are notoriously poor, we couldn’t afford to go somewhere else. However, we could complain LOUDLY and often.

Finally, the dining hall management announced that certain “improvements” would be made. One of which was to send the cooks to cooking school--to learn how to make the food appear more appetizing. So now we got to eat prettier looking ---stuff. I think I’ll have a salad!