Eyes are rolling and toes are impatiently tapping as time ticks by. The minutes seem to be wasting away as class time approaches, while students take deep breaths of exasperation and wait to quiet their stomach grumblings. What can we possibly be referring to? Ah, yes … the infamous Newing Dining Hall sandwich line.

Each day at approximately one in the afternoon, students begin to bustle into the dining hall for their daily lunch, most of them with classes very soon after their allotted few minutes of meal time.

As one can imagine, the meal before a class is expected to be a relatively quick one, with absolutely no time to waste. So then why is it that every day before my 1:15 class, I find myself being the 10th person on the sandwich line at one? No, it is not because I have irresponsibly budgeted my time, since almost all the other students on the line seem to be sharing my aggravation and time constraint (OK, maybe we’re all just irresponsible, but on a group level the blame ceases to fall on us). More likely, it is the simple fact that the Newing Dining Hall under-staffs at such busy hours.

Instead of having a decent two or three people making sandwiches for students who have a limited time to eat, there is but one sympathetic staff member stumbling to make sandwiches, wraps and panini for the long line of disgruntled kids. The sandwich being the most edible thing on the menu in any of the dining halls makes for few alternatives to this daily frustration.

One can gander at the choice of soups, which will probably read something like “Moosewood Barley Soup” or “Canada Cheese Chowder,” both of which look about as appetizing as they sound; unless of course the dining hall has made the usual mistake of mislabeling the soups available. In which case, the next step is to make yourself a salad and leave the dining hall with half a meal in your system. Or, on the other hand, you can grease it up with a fast chicken finger, french fry or mozzarella stick lunch, which you’ll undoubtedly be feeling the rest of the day (not to mention you won’t be able to fit into your skinny jeans anymore).

While all the options sound tempting, I find it easier to get fat in my own room, eating a quick and painless Easy Mac. Maybe some day a trip to the Newing Dining Hall will not resemble the excruciating experiences I’ve had at the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles.