I, like many people of the world, enjoy food, and we need food to nourish our bodies so that they can perform the daily tasks we need to accomplish each day. Unfortunately, sometimes I don’t eat like I should, and I load up on the junk food that is available to me or skip meals entirely. Today’s situation was composed of both evils, first skipping breakfast in favor of sleeping after math class and only eating some trail mix and a pack of gummies for lunch. Needless to say, I was hungry when I got into the N-Wing Cafeteria, ready to chow down on my usual salad bar salad and piles of blanched vegetables. However, once the woman at the cash register swiped my ID and gave me my receipt, I headed for the stations and found that they were completely empty, not a speck of food in sight.

I caught a whiff of something that smelled delicious and promptly turned my head to find that the dining area had been overtaken by Thanksgiving food stations, the selection of food tantalizing to say the least. I had gotten there at the tail end of dinner time, around 7:00, so most of the food had been eaten already, but there was still plenty to take. I was not expecting giant turkey legs, cranberry sauce, large roasted potatoes and other holiday goodies to be lining the tables, but I didn’t complain or question why the cafeteria was doing this. I took a plate and filled it with the food mentioned above, grabbing a cup of ginger ale to go with it, since that soda has always helped me to relieve stomach aches from eating too fast. To top off a great dinner time, the TV that sits above the bread and waffle station was tuned to Project Runway, and since I haven’t seen that show in forever, I decided to sit down at the counter and watch. There was another boy next to me that was eating, not really watching the show but listening in occasionally. During the commercials, I tried to make small talk about how Nutella changed their slogan from “a hint of cocoa” to flat out saying that it had cocoa in it, and that escalated  into us talking about Nutella and our heritages and pets and turkey and the show in front of us. Even though we didn’t talk long, it was really nice to meet a friendly person who was willing to talk about things with me and I was kind of sad to see him go.

That dinner was the best that I have had in a while; it felt like I was at my nana’s house instead of on campus. The only thing that was slightly off was that the giant turkey leg that I had contained all of these thin, flat, long, pointy bones that I had to pick out of my mouth. It felt like I was eating a porcupine, but it was an extremely delicious porcupine. Now I just have to wait until next Thursday when I can celebrate with my parents, cousins, relatives, and grandparents and hope that the food there matches or surpasses the food that was served on campus.