Dinner at Radcliffe

"I'd do anything for a free meal," Vag muttered as he glanced at his fingernails, cuffs, pocket flaps, and buttons. Then he strolled nonchalantly toward the girl behind the bell desk, announced his arrival, and suffered her appraisal in silence. "You have a caller," she proclaimed into the phone.

Ten minutes later he casually greeted his date, "Well, when do we eat?" She replied that in a few minutes everyone would eat at the same time, "family style." Vag, although a family man from way back, was skeptical; "Does your family include any men?" he asked, as thirty, feminine eyes followed his movements. "Not usually," was the none too reassuring answer.

After a few more minutes of conversation, Vag joined the exodus toward the dining room. He gallantly held open the door for his date, and remained there while the rest of the dormitory took advantage of his gesture. Vag later located his girl at one of the eight tables in the pleasantly decorated room. Each girl was standing solemnly behind her chair. "Well, what now? Grace?" he said, trying to stimulate conversation.

"Most certainly yes," was the reply, accompanied by a scorching glance. No sooner had he placed his head reverently upon his chest, however, than everyone sat down. The lone standee murmured, "Who's calling signals at this game?"

The girl on his right placed the food on a plate and passed the plate to her right. This first plateful then continued around the table, through twelve hands, and returned, almost, to the starting point; that is, to Vag. The epitome of chivalric behaviour, he graciously declined, and returned it to the girl who had passed the plate to him. She raised her eyebrows above the rims of her glasses and exclaimed, "You are ruining the system!" A conservative and Gov major, Vag accepted the plate with the ham, pinapple, and spinach. But he decided to ignore the food and concentrate upon the blonde across the table from him. "Do you often get ice cream for dessert?"

"Oh, no," she replied, "We have a cottage cheese endowment like your ice cream fund." He puffed his chest and announced, "I have word from the highest authority that there is no ice-cream endowment. This is a myth which should be exploded."

"There certainly is an ice cream endowment."

"There is not," Vag cried.

"You sir, are wrong."

Blondes never appreciated him. "Okay, I'm wrong," and he returned meekly to his cold ham. The meal proceeded uneventfully until the waitress (a student) asked if he wanted pudding or an apple for desert. "What kind of pudding?"

"Pudding pudding," was her answer.

"I'll have an apple."

"Oh, now you don't really want an apple."

"I certainly don't want pudding pudding."

"Don't you?" she said coyly.

"All right, I'll have pudding." She was very cute. No sooner had Vag begun the pudding (which both looked and tasted like ice-cream) than everyone else stood up. Undaunted, he continued to eat. The hostess whispered to him urgently, "The house mother's table is leaving."

"So what?"

Vag had not even finished his pudding when his date took his arm and suggested they leave. He ignored her scowl when he strode past the door which a girl was holding open for her friend. After bidding a farewell, he bid a hasty retreat to Hayes-Bick.