I’m declaring a state of emergency.
And no I’m not talking about Egypt Sacramento or even our school systems. This emergency is far more pressing and potentially catastrophic than those aforementioned three combined.
I’m talking about the Waves Café. A proverbial time bomb nestled between the turnstiles of that God-forsaken place is slowly approaching zero and we no longer have Jack Bauer around to bail us out. I came to the realization that something was fishy (and no I’m not talking about the Japanese steakhouse on Ventura Boulevard with the playful commercials) when I recently paid $6 for a piece of cheesecake from the dessert bar. When I saw my total flash up in line I about lost my chicken quesadilla – and I hadn’t even taken a bite yet. It’s safe to say the worst parts of my day are the moments when my Caf point totals flash up after I pay for my meal. It’s amazing how a three-digit number can totally kill the effervescent feelings recently acquired from receiving your grill order; it’s amazing to see the type of scorn handed down by your fellow students behind you in line. “You only have 200 points? It’s February…”
My cries of a high metabolism and demanding pituitary gland always fall on deaf ears. Alas the problem at hand couldn’t be more obvious if it set up a table by Nature’s Edge and awkwardly solicited you on your way to lunch: we’re simply paying too much for our Grade B food.
Call me old fashioned but when I think about spending $52000 on something I tend to just assume the lunch is included if you know what I mean. Hell you can get a two-week-long all-inclusive Sandals vacation in this economy for like $80. Forget the fact that our Caf points are included in tuition it’s downright criminal to hand someone $2400 for eight months of food and then provide them with fewer options than a mob boss under a federal indictment. I say who cares about the Caf Points? A chicken tender dinner costs $10! I’d rather they just give us a check at the start of the year and I’ll find a way to be economical off-campus.
There are three places on this planet where food vendors think they’re above the law: Disneyland the airport and the Pepperdine Waves Café. If our administration would stop spending money on this whole education fad and instead reallocated the funds toward giving students free lunches Pepperdine would be the greatest place in the world. Even if they increased our tuition by a grand if that resulted in a free-for-all all-you-can-eat buffet-style cafeteria that you’re allowed to go to 18 times a week we’d find ourselves in heaven.
But that makes too much sense and it’s too successful at other universities. And even with prices higher than a loaf of bread in Cairo right now that may not be the biggest issue facing the cafeteria today. Perhaps students would be more inclined to pay $5 for a slice of pizza if it were made by the ethereal hands of Emeril himself. But alas it’s not and this has resulted in a chasm of disparity between the price and quality. Any fool can see they don’t correlate. Maybe if we expanded the actual building itself we could provide students with more options for food and allow them to get it in less than an hour when they’re hungry around I don’t know say lunchtime. Can you imagine walking into a food court with Chipotle Subway Panda Express and Chik-Fil-A? I just summed up 65 percent of my nightly dreams in that last sentence.
Maybe I am old fashioned and maybe I’m just a dreamer. I had a dream that a perfect Pepperdine cafeteria existed but then I woke up staring at the $25000 vending machine with 2.6 million beverage options and quickly came back to Earth. Who needs that many options? Either you’re getting a soda (5 to 6 options) lemonade or water. That’s called a normal vending machine. For the sake of my sanity let’s just forget about the peach-flavored grape soda.
I don’t exactly know how to solve this emergency but then again I’m just a student and it’s not really my job to come up with solutions. As a humor columnist I just come up with the problems. I could be wrong. Maybe the student body would prefer more drink choices over an affordable well-balanced meal.
But until then I guess $4.75 for half a dozen Starburst is fair. Besides they’re tropical.
*La Brea was not mentioned in this article in light of the fact that students are unable to eat there more than twice a semester. Its exorbitantly high prices made its impact on actual student lunches irrelevant.