Every semester, I take a survey about my experience with the dining services at Harding. It asks questions like “During a typical week, how often do you eat at (campus eating establishment)?” or “How would you rate the following at (campus eating establishment)?” All of my responses are pretty typical up until the final question, which asks something along the lines of: “What improvements would you like to see made in the Charles White Dining Hall?” There’s something about that combination of words that serves as a silver bullet against any writer’s block I could have.

My main interest in this section has never been the usual banter about the quality of the food. I’m actually okay with the quality of the food. Rather, I have always made petitions for more do-it-yourself options. However, I started noticing that every time I would do this survey, the next semester would show just the opposite. I remember the good old days of 2012: You could make your own sandwiches, butter your own toast and burn your own stir-fry. Yet with every impassioned declaration of independence, it no longer mattered how much I liked to grill my deli-turkey/ham/roast beef before putting it on my sandwich, or that I knew 100 ways how not to make stir-fry.

I thought I could counteract this by petitioning for more services at the end of the survey. I believe my last one had something to do with miniature zeppelins carrying our food to our rooms, along with a personal nanny to feed me and wipe my mouth. I felt it was a modest proposal that even Jonathan Swift could agree with. Still, through the past three years, I have watched helplessly as more limitations were placed on what I could and absolutely could not do. What do you mean these tomatoes are only for display? In what economy does 12 ounces of milk cost $8.26? So it’s okay to just throw all of this food away, but I have to swipe again to take it with me?

“Why does it even matter?” you might be asking. Well, I’m a senior RA in Graduate Hall, and I’m on my own when it comes to paying for college (or anything for that matter). I have thrown together a full kitchen in my room, and my foster father back home is a master chef. Yet I am required to have a meal plan that at the very least leaves me with 100 caf swipes and $300 DCB. It matters to me because, even though I am capable, I cannot afford to get groceries to regularly cook for myself when I’m paying $1,200 extra that I would prefer to spend to feed myself. It matters to me because my college experience is supposedly about preparing myself for the rest of my life, yet the caf is not the most conducive place for that.

There may come a day when students once again can make their own sandwiches, butter their own toast and burn their own stir-fry. Until then, the caf offers a challenging environment to think outside the box. There may come a day when the cafe can be more friendly to those who use it as their “neighborhood market.” Until then, it will continue to take some skill to get even $4 worth of supplies out of my $8.26 swipe. There may come a day when the caf offers more opportunities for students to sharpen their culinary skills. Until then, I’ll continue to be the guy shoveling bacon bits into a to-go container, wrapping a three-course meal into two tortillas or getting dirty looks when I pour coffee over ice cream to make a latte.