As expected, the newest additions to the Honors program are making great strides with the academic aspects of college. However, it’s the general feeding-oneself skill that seems to be a challenge. While you might think that Easy Mac or instant noodles would indeed be an “easy” and “instant” meal, you have yet to witness a particularly disgruntled freshman armed with a microwave and care package full of pre-packaged meals.
Easy Mac Started the Fire!
We open with a particularly interesting anecdote in which one of our own overlooked the importance of the great, universal solvent: water. Instead, she placed a plastic cup of DRY macaroni and POWDERED flavoring in the microwave expecting, two minutes later, to have a hot and EDIBLE dinner. Instead, smoke shot from the appliance with a vengeance, and the charred remains permeated the halls, much to the alarm of the other 600 unsuspecting students.
Ramen Debacles
While Mac and Cheese was the near cause of the 2017 Redding burn down, ramen has proved itself to be a greater challenge. Thankfully, this brand of noodle seems to have a less severe failure consequence. A fifth floor student managed to successfully follow the package directions (including the correct amount of water) only to crash land the steaming bowl down the hall. Based on witness accounts, his fall wasn’t much more graceful – featuring a Charlie Brown style crash, with limbs flailing.
I was lucky enough to witness one of my own floormate’s experience cooking for the first time with the classic chicken-flavored ramen and a skillet. The adventure had its complications almost immediately when my floormate couldn’t find a wooden spoon. He unwillingly remedied the situation with a plastic knife, much to his worry about melting the utensil to soup. As the flavoring packet wasn’t enough, he proceeded to dump a generous helping of tabasco into the boiling water and noodle mix. While this definitely added some heat to his dinner, it also set off a small tear gas explosion. Rather than letting all of this absorb into the noodle mix, he dumped the tabasco water down the drain and sprinkled his flavor packet on top. Mission accomplished…I guess?
In other non-noodle related news, an ambulance was nearly called for a student suffering from a poptart induced vomiting fit while another had a close call with a box of rotting fruit. Let’s hope we learn from our mistakes sooner rather than later.
