Peckish for Fast Food

Scenario One: It's 1:00 a.m., and studying organic chemistry has given you dreams of sustenance. The last time you ate was six hours ago at dinner, and your stomach's growls are distracting your study partners. You just can't concentrate. But you've eaten late night Tommy's Pizza for the past two days, the Hong Kong repulses you and you chuckle in disbelief when someone mentions trekking to Central Square. What do you do?

Scenario Two: You see the day's Harvard Dining Services menu in The Crimson, and you've already started feeling ill. But funds are low, and you lack the necessary hot pot to whip up a quick Store 24 packet of ramen noodles. What do you do?

Let me offer a few solutions. McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, Popeye's Subway...need I continue?

Harvard owns a vast share of the real estate in the Square, yet it refuses to answer students' calls for quick and cheap food within reach. Apparently, McDonald's is not classy enough for Harvard Square. And Taco Bell might bring in the bad element looking for cheap food.

One argument against fast food stores is that they would bring more traffic to the Square. But I don't see how it could get much worse. This summer, Dunkin' Donuts received approval to open up a shop in Harvard Square, which is a step in the right direction. But without the pink and orange interior and the wide array of sticky donuts, this shop is going to be just another Au Bon Pain that closes at midnight and sells us bits and pieces of a meal.

Another objection to fast food joints is that they will destroy the class character of Harvard Square, which is supposed to be more upscale than Central Square, where many of Cambridge's fast food restaurants reside. If higher class means ridiculously expensive finger food, then take me to Central.

To appease the members of the Harvard Square Defense Fund, I'm sure that Taco Bell could maintain a subtle exterior, get some nice tables and hire a respectable mascot to keep in line with the rest of the area.

Maybe the Defense Fund is ultimately worried that students will consume too much fat, salt and processed meat if fast food restaurants invade the Square. But we get all that in the dining hall anyway.

Adding more greasy, processed food to my diet is probably not the best way to lead a healthy life, but everything in moderation is allowable. I don't think that anyone could eat McDonald's every day, but it would be a nice change from taking a late night trip to Tommy's or pacing down the aisles of Store 24. Perhaps if dinner in the dining halls went on a little later, there wouldn't be a need for such forays, but dinner ends at 7:15 p.m., and I don't go to bed until 2 a.m. Seven hours after my last meal, I usually get a little peckish, just as when I eat lunch at 12, I'm ready for dinner at 7.

Perish the thought that this would be a real college, with a fast-food row open until 2 a.m., and not just a prestigious historical site. Harvard seems to believe that no one stays up past 1 a.m. to study or to eat. The libraries close before many students get into their studying groove, and when C'est Bon tried to feed starving students with fresh coffee and sandwiches 24 hours a day, its application was refused. For my own health, I should be studying in the library from 10 to 12 instead of procrastinating and then studying from 12 to 2 while sitting starving in my room, but there's no point after a year at Harvard in pretending I have good study habits.

I know I am not the only one who wasn't paying attention when well-meaning adults prescribed appropriate study times. The University tries to deny this problem by closing the libraries and slamming the gates, but even at 3 a.m., I can see the lights on in dormitory windows, and I know there are those studying under the lights who forgot to take five cookies and a couple of rolls from dinner.

Perhaps in the wide space soon to be vacated by the Wursthaus restaurant on JFK Street, we'll find a restaurant that sells cheap, quick, hot and decent food and also understands the burning of the midnight oil. But I'm definitely not getting my hopes up.