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Gahhh! My Cafeteria Is Being Run By Bolsheviks!

by Michael Lawrence


Before you start reading this essay, I think the proper thing to do is introduce myself. Hello, my name is Michael Lawrence. As you can clearly see several lines above this one, I am the author of this essay meaning that I have actually written it. Michael Lawrence is my real name, my pen name is Julius Haafaak, my pseudonym is Hans Jorjirvuk, and my alias is Yenying Xiang. I am a college freshman attending Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas in the United States of America, which is a town whose nickname is "The Little Apple." The reason the residents of this town chose this nickname is not because it gets so little precipitation that the only apples that can be grown here are very tiny. In fact, the reason Manhattan, Kansas is called "The Little Apple" is because it shares its name with a legendary city somewhere out east whose nickname is "The Big Apple." Even though the legendary city I'm talking about is actually called "New York" there is a district within that city called "Manhattan," thus making this little town in Kansas believe that it has the right to call itself "The Little Apple," (even though most of its residence don’t believe Manhattan, New York actually exists and those who do believe that it's a real city thinks that it is located somewhere in Kansas City, Missouri, another place where nobody living here has actually been before, but they have talked to telemarketers who claim to have been there.)

However, as you can plainly see from the title "Gahhh! My Cafeteria Is Being Run By Bolsheviks!" this essay should involve a cafeteria and Bolsheviks. If you have been reading this essay, you have probably figured out that I haven't yet mentioned a cafeteria and I certainly haven't touched the subject of Bolsheviks. All I have talked about so far is about this little town that I live in located in central Kansas (that large rectangular-ish body of water located in the center of the USA.) Therefore, I obviously haven't started writing the actual theme of this essay yet, so if you want to, you can skip the entire first paragraph.

On with the third paragraph: (you can probably skip the second paragraph too, if you don't think you need it.) I am actually sitting in my chair at my computer writing this essay because I feel like griping about the way my cafeteria is run at Kansas State University, in Manhattan, in Kansas, in a lake, in the United States of America, on the Planet Earth, in the Milky Way Galax...

I'm sorry about that, I can get carried away sometimes. Where was I? Oh yeah, on with the fourth paragraph: my monthly housing and dining services bill comes to $485 a month which roughly translates to $5.39 per day (which honestly, isn't a bad price at all.) I'm assuming that about 95% of this actually goes to the cafeteria considering the residence halls were probably completely paid for by 1962 and the electricity appears to be powered by a million little hamsters running on a million little wheels somewhere below the basement (where’s P.E.T.A. when you need them?) So, I'm concluding that $5.12 per day ($1.71 per meal) is going to the cafeteria. I'm assuming also that the cafeteria makes enough profit off of this to actually pay its employees. However, when some clumsy student with two left feet (like me) falls with a tray of food in his/(maybe her) hands breaking the elegant chinaware, the cafeteria sends them below the basement of a residence hall. There, the residence hall will pay the cafeteria to have him/(maybe her) remain there whipping the hamsters so they will go faster (that's why my computer monitor sometimes looks like it’s about to explode.)

Getting on track again with the fifth paragraph, I would like to mention that in the United States of America, it is against the law to be Communist. Oh, there are people here who claim to be Communists, but they aren't really. They’re only saying that to get Congressional attention from Paul McCartney. Well, somewhere in outer space, there is a satellite. This satellite’s sole purpose is to scan the entire US. When it is finished scanning, the information is beamed to Seattle, Washington (hence the name) where an outline of the United States is projected onto a very large screen with red dots scattered about. Select members of the C.I.A., F.B.I., and B.F.I. observe these red dots (which represents a person who has become infected with the Communist epidemic) and call, depending on the location, either the S.W.A.T. Team (East Coast), the N.Y.P.D (West Coast), or the Ghostbusters (Mid West) who will arrest these individuals and put them under quarantine. And guess where they are usually put under quarantine. University cafeterias.

To get to where I'm actually getting at in this seemingly pointless essay, I would like to tell you a little story. No! Don't leave! It's a short story! You have made it all the way to the sixth paragraph and I promise that it’s almost over with. Ok, now for the story. One day I was eating breakfast. I guess that’s not too unusual since most people eat breakfast everyday and that day was probably no exception. Well, all I had that morning was a glass of orange juice and a bowl of Cheerios (which, incidentally, is supplied to the cafeteria by the General Mills Corporation for no cost knowing that during college, we will all build up a dependency on Cheerios that will last for the rest of our lives.) Anyway, I was eating those Cheerios and I look to my left and who do I find? You probably don’t know him, his name is Butch. Butch is a very large fellow; his forearms are as thick as a lamppost and his fingers are as thick as my forearms (combined.) And what he was eating was FIVE bowls of Cheerios, FIVE glasses of orange juice, PLUS two dozen doughnuts, twelve scrambled eggs, about a pound of hash browned potatoes, an entire moose, 40 feet of sausage links, among other things. Then, to make it worse, Butch's friends, Mud, Animal, Gut, and Copernicus, who are relatively the same size as Butch, came to the very same table (Gut almost sat on me) individually with almost the EXACT same meal as Butch. I calmly think to myself "Geez, what a bunch of pigs," but then I thought further... (this paragraph has been a little lengthy, so I think I’ll start anew.)

"Wait a second!" I thought. "We're paying the EXACT same amount for our meals! I'm paying $1.71 for this bowl of Cheerios, and Butch over there is paying the exact same amount ($1.71) for his mass quantity of Cheerios, orange juice, doughnuts, eggs, hash browns, sausage, moose, etc. Is this right?" (sorry for the short paragraph.)

Even though I am allowed to eat whatever I want in the Kansas State University cafeterias, facts are facts, I, and a lot of other students are paying for Butch's and his friend’s meal. This sounds a lot like Communism to me! I propose that the Kansas State University Housing and Dining Services adopts a payment plan where students pay for their meals in proportion with the size of their forearms. This way, people who don't like eating 54 lbs. of food per day don’t have to pay for the people who do. Do it for the students and do it because it is the American way. (This is the last paragraph of the essay, you don’t really have to read anything below this.)

When The United States of America was founded in 1776, after George Washington Carver defeated the (I'm serious, you can stop reading now) British Troops with his army of peanut butter at the Battle of Skippy Mountain in Manhattan, New York or Kansas, George Washington Carver said "Thy country iseth dammed if it commeth toward Communism." (This is not historically accurate, so you'd better stop reading this) The British general, General Cornball, overheard this and said, "I shalt spend the rest of the dammeth days of mine where I shall buildeth a creator of cinema somewhereth in California in the Southeth of Westeth." General (Am I going to have to come over there? Will you stop reading this goop?) Washington Carver overheard this hostile comment on this historic day and (Hey I heard that! For your information, I didn't write this!) interrupted. "Whereth iseth this California of the Southeth of Westeth?" General Cornball responded, "Thateth for me to knoweth and for you to find outeth. (No, I didn't write it! It was written by a crazy nutball named Hans Jorjirvuk) In this creator of cinema, I shalt create a portrait that moveths on the commandeth of mine. I shall corrupteth the people of anew and they shall thinketh that iteth of the goodwill to geteth a bazooka and beateth the excrement of mongrels outeth others." (No! He PAID me to put this in!) On that historic day, arose an American hero, who most of you probably know to be Charlton Heston. "Blasphemy!" he yelled (Now hey! Have you forgotten? I told you to quit reading this paragraph! Get on with your life, you have better things to do) "Don't you know how a bazooka is to be used! You don't beat the living excrement of mongrels out of your victims! You shoot the living tar out of 'em! Hah hah hah hah hah hah!" General Cornball returned, "Aha, interestingeth concepteth, (Okay, that does it! I’m about to come over there and MAKE you stop reading this paragraph!) The America of the Uniteth Stateth will surely perish under the peril of Communithem now." The heroic Charlton Heston yelled in anger, "Now I have been many people in my day! (I'm warning you!) I've been a Roman Slave, Moses, an ape smooching son of a gun, a gun loving son of a gun, I was even a Spanish guy who I have forgotten the name of, but a damn Red bastard helper I am not. (Congratulations, you made it to the bottom of this paragraph, call 1-800-BOB-DOPE, to pick up your free automobile courtesy of The General Mills Corporation. Thank you for your participation in helping create a healthier America) Die by the hand of my fierce bazooka, Commie bastard!" Cornball replied, "Doh!"

This is copyright by Michael Lawrence. He loves peanuts.