Not Worthy

To Arms! OC Dorm Beat

I've Seen Fire (& I've Seen Poop)

Regretfully, the ability to take a peaceful dump is one of life's everyday pleasures that we aging dorm rats give up when we grudgingly pack into University Housing like bitter, gangrenous rebels into Valley Forge for our long winter's starch binge (compliments of Housing's last remaining cafeteria). But the yearly inconvenience that I personally most look forward to every fall -- except, of course, for Bruised Pumpkin Carve Thursday -- is fire inspection.

Fire inspection caught me a little off guard this year, you see. Somehow I missed the 24-hour notice carefully posted on the front door amidst the twenty million other announcements, some dated as far back as February of 1978. Well, on a Monday not so long ago, I was awakened by distant knocking and a loud, soulless voice declaring in a monotone, "Fire inspector. (pause) Open up." I fought vainly to free myself from the warm embrace of semi-consciousness as the voice and the pounding made their way slowly towards my door. Finally, gaining the upper hand against fatigue, I toppled out of bed and hit my nose on the bookshelf just as the voice began blasting its robotic message through my door's thin, plywood frame. With no further warning other than a muddled "I'm coming in," the fire inspector and a cohort burst into my room. The inspector must have been accustomed to intruding on the privacy of half-naked men covered in their own blood, because he paid no heed to me and my marred nose. "It" headed straight for my fire detector, leaving me to deal with the cheerful small talk of his smiling partner in crime.

I learned a lot about fire inspectors that day. They are, to be blunt, callous bastards. It is my own suspicion that they are the yield of many failed experiments involving gene splicing during the Korean War, when the US's finest scientists and bioengineers struggled for a full year to create an unstoppable GI that would finally once and for all push the North Koreans back up past the 51st parallel and "keep 'em there." Immune to such weaknesses as compassion and common decency, they are utterly incapable of relating in any way whatsoever to the human condition. For these soulless constructs, ten in the morning is a reasonable hour to conduct unnecessary inspections on the fire-proof dorm rooms of your average nocturnal college student.

When it was all over, after they had left, I found myself feeling dizzy and slightly soiled, holding a citation for the deplorable crime of having two (unlit) candles in my room. According to this citation, the inspector and his sadistic partner will one day return, and if they find the candles again, they will fine me $50. Being treated like a toddler while slowly bleeding to death in my underwear in front of two bald men was truly a unique experience that will likely require years of advanced shock treatment to overcome. I called the resident director to thank him and possibly have him confirm my assumptions that these two men were indeed cyborgs, but unfortunately he was not available for comment. Who needs facts anyway, when you've got embellishment?

!Good Vibrations!

It was a Saturday night and I was tired from spending the entire afternoon at the Duck game. The TV time-outs had added countless minutes that night, and after enjoying an afternoon of camaraderie and smuggled beer, I couldn't psych myself up to hit the bars. I knew I needed to, though, because I had this deadline for the Commentator. There I was with my buddies, trying to figure out what to do as we drove aimlessly through the streets of Eugene, when we decided to hit one of the city's newest restaurant chains, the Olive Garden.

At 8:30 on a Saturday night, the Olive Garden was packed. Starving diners waited outside the building, and we had to hover in order to snag some barstools to pass the time while we waited the obligatory 45 minutes for our table. Probably the best thing I can say about my experience of waiting for a table at the Olive Garden regards the pager system. God bless it, the thing vibrated. I tucked it into the front pocket of my jeans and eagerly awaited the availability of a table. I had hoped they would test it a few times, because I was in need of a cheap thrill.

I perused the drink menu and thought back to the days before I became legal. I remembered thinking, "I can't wait to turn 21 and consume all of these fancy drinks." Now, looking at the menu, I can't help but think, "$5 for an ounce of liquor and a pound of garnish? You've got to be kidding me." Again, too tired to be creative, I settled on a glass of wine and we went for a fattening appetizer.

I watched our bartender, Heidi, schlep drinks for servers and customers alike. In defiance of the inevitable corporate rule that Heidi use a shot glass to measure out the alcohol, her pours were generous and she was efficient. I also had the chance to watch Heidi receive a lecture from another bartender about the proper order of the strawberry-orange-lime-and-lemon garnish that went along with the Sangria. But I think the most impressive garnish was for the Antipasto Bloody Mary (an Olive Garden "specialty drink," we were told). I must give high points for the presentation of this thing -- a couple of celery stalks ringed by green pepper and onion, and a spear of green olives and salami. An astute consumer like myself realizes, however, that once you take out the celery and all the other crap, you are left with a mere inch of diluted booze at the bottom of your glass.

When you wait 45 minutes for a table at the Olive Garden, there is inevitably some time for self-reflection. What was I doing here? How can a place that serves borderline pasta and pre-fabricated entrees hold me captive? For me, it's a bottom line issue. An "endless bowl" of pasta that only costs $7 is well worth the wait, particularly when you can also fill up on the salad and breadsticks. But when I heard an employee tell some people at the bar that earlier in the evening the wait had been two-and-a-half hours, I could hardly contain myself.

In my mind, the fact that people would wait that long at a glorified fast food restaurant only proved my theory: that Eugene sucks. Let me admit a bias. I prefer restaurants where a chef has put some thought into a menu, where creativity is favored over appealing to the slack-jawed masses. In a city where restaurants like Zenon, Ambrosia and West Brothers exist, its citizens turn out in droves for marinara sauce out of a jar. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Fortunately for my compatriots, my anti-Eugene rant was interrupted by our table becoming available. As the vibrating pager went off, a squeal of ecstasy escaped my lips. I wanted to wait for a few more rounds, but we were worried that someone else might get the table and the guys, while amused by my enjoyment of my poor woman's vibrator, were too hungry to wait.

For most citizens of this town, the addition of an Olive Garden is something to be embraced and celebrated, but I, for one, can't get too excited about a chain restaurant. Unless, that is, they left me alone for awhile with my pager.