Dining Hall Horrors

A school cafeteria can be one of the most unsettling places you find yourself in life. Who will I sit with? Will they like me? Will they even talk to me? What they don’t tell you though is that a cafeteria as an adult can be just as isolating. With a deep breath, I remind myself: what’s the worst that could happen?

Entering the dining hall on my first day, I’m painfully aware that everyone has done this before but me. Still, I’m smiling to fake it ’til I make it. Technically, I have does this before. But it’s different now. I’m not a camper, but a twenty-one year old who graduated college a year early and took the first job she could find: at a camp for outdoor education.

There aren’t even campers here yet, but a very real fear sits in my gut telling me I’m not cut out for this job. I see the energy of my coworkers, all a couple years older and all veterans here, and I’m stuck in this timid mindset of perfectionism. I learn by watching them move through the scene. Is this how dinners always go? They each grab a plate. Last in line, I grab one, too.

The menu is written in colorful expo markers on the wall in yet another display of camp-world enthusiasm. Tonight’s dishes include tri-trip – a smell that had floated through camp all afternoon and earned celebratory high-fives from my coworkers – mashed potatoes, and a veggie medley of broccoli and cauliflower. In an effort to seem polite and thrilled by the meal, I piled my plate with all the fixings, and joined the others at the table.

I observed the way everyone was eating, self-conscious of the way I cut my steak. Growing up, steak cutting had been an ordeal in our household, with us kids complaining about the task and a guaranteed joke from my dad: “gosh, you’ll be in college on day, calling daddy to cut your steak for you.” Part of me wished I was paying better attention back then, as I’m suddenly aware of my incapacity for this simple task. I’m doing it, but am I doing it right?

After two bites, my stomach can’t bear it any more. Unrelenting nerves have served me a greater fullness than any heaping pile of mashed potatoes ever could. Two things are exacerbating the tingling in my stomach: my boss’s boss who seems to be eyeing my plate from two seats over, and the exceptionally cute older boy who – god help me – already lives rent free in the back of my mind. If you don’t learn to wipe that sauce from your mouth, you’ll never get a second date. When I recall this old dinner table joke, I dab my mouth with my napkin and force down a few more bites of broccoli.

***

The next three hours passed with awkwardly painful aches. We were set to tie-dye shirts for the season: me, my boss, and the four other co-workers which includes – you guessed it – that cute older boy. Despite the late-summer evening, the fireplace was on in the small room. Grateful as ever for coastal California climate, I continuously stepped out of the room to breathe in the cool ocean air and tame my nausea.

It’s only my first day of work, the very first day of work since graduating college. What if the food doesn’t agree with me here? What if I don’t have the stamina and confidence to keep up with this crazy world of camp leaders? I step outside again, this time with a trip to the bathroom that comes up dry.

I climb back the hill to the tie-dye room. In my absence, someone pulled a real team-player move and retrieved all the leftover cheesecake from the kitchen. Stepping back in the room, I eye the rich treat and nearly retreat once more.

“I’m good, thanks,” one coworker passes on the dessert, and my stomach breathes a sigh of relief to not be the only one to miss out.

“What! No, you have to try it. The cheesecake here is to die for!”

Well, that settles that. I picked up the smallest slice and smiled through a choked swallow. “Yum.”

When the night is finally ending, I hate that I’m relieved. Tie-dying is supposed to be fun, but my stomach is threatening to eject on to the reptile display and the taxidermy mountain lion. Somehow I managed a friendly goodnight before hobbling back to the staff cabin that four of us share – which, yes, includes this cute older boy.

Comfort. Peace. Space to organize my thoughts. Reluctantly, I have resigned to the fact that I am the first and only one to be winding down for the night. My sweats are already on, and I’m one moment away from climbing in to my bed to dwell on my knotted stomach and fretting about whether I’ll be able to descend from my bunk in a timely manner if the vomit dares to rise to my mouth.

As fate would have it, that’s when the door opens. As luck would have it, it was that cute older boy.

“Oh, hey! I’m about to show everyone the video I made for our old boss. I know you don’t know her or anyone in the video, but you should come watch! If you want, of course.”

Twenty-four hours. I’ve hardly know this guy over twenty-four hours. Still, twenty-one years of rational decision-making went out the window. Though my stomach cramped and boiled, I found myself saying, “I’ll be right down.”

***

I did go down. It was a lovely video, of unfamiliar faces speaking fondly of a woman hardly known to me, and I was grateful to be included and all too aware of the developing youthful crush I had on this smiling boy. The credits rolled, and I was made aware of my limited time.

Perhaps it’s a delusional attempt to save any dignity, but I like to think I exited the room with grace after exchanging the appropriate pleasantries. Stepping on to the back patio in the cool ocean air, I emptied the contents of my stomach over the balcony. The most disturbing part, aside from any humiliation I may suffer, was easily the broccoli. Destined to be tainted in my mind forever.

The revolt I felt toward broccoli was quickly replaced by the fact I was below the boys’ window, which happened to be opened. The thought of them – particularly, him – smelling my physical embarrassment was too exhausting to dwell on after this day. My female coworker was kind enough to assist with covering up the matter with dirt, and I tucked myself in to bed, hoping the worst was over.

***

The next night’s dinner marked my first in the kitchen. I heated a plate of seemingly harmless chicken tenders in the microwave and debated whether I was practicing adequate kitchen and food safety practices in this commercial kitchen. 

“Hey, are you ready for our date?” A voice called in the other room, one I pretended not to hear so I could feign lack of shyness when I saw him face-to-face.

Each night for the rest of the week, we would be having “dates” with coworkers to get to know one another. Fate tapped on my door once again by pairing me up with this cute boy on the first round. His comment surprised me, though intended to be playful, I tried not to dwell on any seriousness that could be tucked behind the joke. You take things too seriously, the voice of my sixth grade teacher echoes in my head.

“Where should we go for this date?”

​We went out back, where there is a perfectly unobstructed view of the sun setting right over the ocean. Romantic in any other situation, but munching on my leftover chicken tenders and a crunchy pear with a structured list of questions to float back and forth hindered any mood setting.

​ Though my nerves were high, they had fallen since last night. I had gotten any misfortune out of my system. It’s like a clean slate now. What’s the worst that could happen?