6 Stages of Anxiety at UNH Themed Dinners

Stage 1.  Infiltrating the Hall,

Usually you can swipe right in (or should I say fingerprint right in) and proceed to find a table with your friends. Nope, not tonight. You, your friends and 100 other wildcats crowd the lobby pushing through to enter the dining hall. Have fun.

Stage 2.  Access Granted!

Great, you’re in! Believe it or not, you just went through the easy part. Now it’s time to decide if you’re going to find a table first, or wait in a different line than your friends in hopes that you won’t lose them.

 Stage 3.  Search & cover.

Okay, it would be a bad night to lose your friends in the dining hall so you’re going on a search for a table. You execute 6 or 7 laps around the dining hall before you find someone about to finish their meal. Strategically you place your phones down(with a fear of it getting snatched,but you leave it anyway) the minute they stand up and leave to secure your territory for the evening.

 Stage 4.  The Line Up.

The lines suck. You’re probably going to wait fifteen minutes to get to a variety of small, but delicious, options.  There are usually two lines for the same offerings so you have to guess which one will go the fastest and wait it out. You carefully scan the crowd for heavy platers. Avoid them at all costs.  

Stage 5.  Mission Accomplished…or is it?

You reach your final destination…food!  Just when you thought it was safe to test the culinary waters, IT’S NOT!  How are you going to fit everything you want onto one plate?  A quick glance and you notice the line behind you is painfully long.  Although you waited for this very moment to get your food, you do NOT want to hold everyone up (because you know how it feels) so you anxiously grab what you want quickly and covertly move to the next appetizing selection.  You do not want to mess up this “GRAB and GOrge” because nobody wants to wait in line again.

Good luck fitting everything on your plate.

 Stage 6.  Dessert: The Final Frontier.

Honestly, this is my favorite part.  PLEASE keep in mind that dessert should always have a coveted spot on your plate because it’s fabulous. The line usually isn’t as long for dessert, however, there is a significant crowd of mission oriented diners. Juggling more than one plate while maneuvering back to your table can be somewhat stressful because you’re trying to balance your food and not drop it or, even worse, bump into someone and cause them to drop their carefully curated succulent delights. 

All wildcats want to avoid that embarrassment.

• hoco
• philly
• unh