sub “Chick-Fil-A” and that’s my college experience
I mean I GUESS there might’ve been a McDonald’s in the Cave but idk, I ended up hating them ONLY bc I got in a fight with my bestie once over whether or not to have it for dinner and just quit eating there out of spite
I’m so glad Food Theory proved that Popeyes is scientifically better chicken than Chick-Fil-A. So far as I know, Popeyes has never hated me for existing.
Popeyes is the best fast food chicken. (Sorry, Colonel.) I just wish they had more locations in my area.
Tim
KFCs chicken sandwich was actually almost as good as Popeyes. Same with JitB.
BBCC
To each their own. I can’t stand Popeyes. It’s dry and old tasting. I have never had any that tasted good. KFC was better, but the last few places I went weren’t great (in the mall) and they weren’t great. I know local places that’s really good though and those are my fried chicken of choice.
BBCC
In fairness though, it’s been several years since I’ve tried it and I’ve only tried it twice or three times. So who knows, maybe it’s better now. I’ll give it another shot sometime, since everyone I know who eats it swears by it.
Hrafn
No. Nando’s is the best fast food chicken. 😛
Kaidah
Fool! Students must eat only at Galasso’s!
Rose by Any Other Name
Agreed. Finding a Popeyes is the hardest thing about eating at Popeyes. Still, worth it if you can manage.
Icalasari
Meanwhile, we’ve had one here for years and thank god because our KFC is trash. Pure trash
Kids These Days and their corporatized food courts! The idea of letting fast food franchises colonize college meal plans was anathema when I was a student, Back In My Day (90’s). Was the food any healthier? Meh. But at least we weren’t bombarded with corporate advertising every time we went to lunch.
(Lessee, shook my stick, used “Kids These Days” and “Back In My Day” – did I miss anything? Pretty sure I get a prize for properly scolding The Youngs…)
I would like to join you… but that was already changing when I was in college.
First it was Subway.
Then, in Grad School, it was Quiznos and A&W.
Finally, in more recent years, the campus building where I teach went Chik Fil A. And that was most vexing, particularly on Office Hours days where I had the unpleasant choice to eat there or to eat cold leftovers (our office microwave didn’t work).
Roborat
When I went (University of Alberta), it sucked, because there weren’t any fast food places anywhere near the university area. If you lived in residence and didn’t have a car, it was a bus ride or long walk, so you were pretty much stuck with cafeteria food. Ironically, the U was offered a chance to get one of the first McDonalds franchises in the City, and they turned it down.
I don’t think you shouted about your lawn, which is a double whammy because even though I’m turning 30 next year I still won’t ever be able to afford one.
Clif
Oh, no! Does that make my lawn even more of a target?
Oh, wait. I rent, on account of I can afford to and maintenance is someone else’s problem who isn’t me.
Does it count if I wave my cane and yell “get off my patio?”
I eat healthier than I used to, but once a month or so I gotta get some Taco Bell.
Doesn’t need to be any menu item in particular, it’s not like a craving for McNuggets or fries. I just want Taco Bell, it’s basically all the same.
They should sell that stuff by weight. “Yeah, give me about a pound and a half of Taco Bell” and you just get a plastic bag filled with meat, cheese, and tortilla bits. I’m imagining it dispensed from, like, a gas pump that just ticks up the price the longer you squeeze the handle.
Taco Bell is its own thing, I guess. Like, I live in Texas, and we can get MUCH more authentic texmex easily, but some people I know crave it still from time to time. One compared it once to “sometimes, you want to eat a cartoon”, and that sums it up.
I don’t go for it, but I dislike ground beef, so that rules out a huge amount of the menu, so, yeah.
woobie
Nobody thinks it is authentic TexMex. But some people do like it.
StClair
Kind of like my fondness for “orange” and “grape” soda.
BarerMender
Nehi?
Needfuldoer
Radar?
StClair
I’ve actually had grape Nehi! It was okay.
But in my experience, there really isn’t a lot of variation between brands of “grape” (or “orange”) soda. Whether store brand or part of one of the major labels (Fanta, Crush, Shasta, etc etc), most of them have similar (artificial) flavor profiles… and when that’s what I’m in the mood for, that’s what I want.
Moonie
Peach Nehi is the only sugar soda l will consume. And it’s only once every free years. But man that stuff is amazing.
Decidedly Orthogonal
I’m just tripping over the irony of saying, “Authentic TexMex.”
Is that like authentic processed cheese?
Andy
No, because TexMex is an actual cuisine that developed along the border with Mexico. Also, there is such a thing as authentic processed cheese in some cases: ask a St. Louisan about provel some time and if they’ve ever had the real stuff anywhere else.
Authentic is a weird label to apply to food in any case. Americanized foods from other cuisines are often considered inauthentic, but if that’s what people who grew up in those cuisines cooked when they came to America, how can they really be inauthentic? That’s like saying a language is not longer authentic because it picked up loan words from other languages.
thejeff
Often the Americanized versions aren’t really what people from those cultures cooked for themselves, but what they changed up to appeal to Americans they cooked for in restaurants.
Victor
The French have been known to get all kinds of pissy about loanwords. English is one of the few languages that absolutely loves loanwords, they’ve been estimated to be 80% of the language.
“Authentic” is itself a loanword, having made its way to English from French, which got it from Latin, which took it from Greek.
And I wouldn’t call it a weird label to apply to food. It’s helpful to be able to distinguish a food item as not having been Americanized, because in the majority of cases the Americanization of a food is not an improvement. That’s certainly not a universal, Cajun food is after all an Americanization of French cuisine.
Taco Bell is an interesting case, in that it’s absolutely authentic American food. It has its own unique Taco Bell flavor that’s only vaguely related to any other cuisine.
As far as what people who grew up in other cuisines cook when they came to America? Chinese food is an interesting example, in that there is a distinct difference in what Chinese people tend to cook to serve to Americans and what they tend to cook for themselves to eat at home.
On the other hand, no cuisine is truly ‘authentic’ in that every cuisine has been altered by interaction with the rest of the world. Italian cuisine has only involved the tomato for about 500 years. Indian cuisine has only involved chili peppers for about the same period of time. And England’s ‘national dish’ fish and chips requires potatoes, another food that didn’t make it to Europe until about 450 years ago. It’s still happening, salmon’s use in sushi, now one of the most popular sushi fish in Japan, originated in Norway in the 1990s (there was a deliberate marketing campaign).
So ‘authentic’ isn’t completely accurate. But it’s useful shorthand for “cuisine as it exists in the country that it’s purported to be representative of rather than as it’s been altered by recent influences in another country.”
Lokitsu
Actually, Tex-Mex is perfectly valid as a regional cuisine. It’s no different from Creole or KC Barbecue. As long as you don’t confuse it with authentic Mexican….
Clif
TexMex and Mexican are different and Taco Bell is way different, but in my completely objective opinion, the best authentic Mexican food in the world is served in Texas and the best Chineese food in the world is served in Mexico.
We has spoken.
woobie
I remember a Chinese restaurant in Ensenada that was very good but different.
And a few other ‘regular’ restaurants with no tortillas in sight.
Matthew E Davis
When I was doing a postdoc in Canada as a Southern Californian I started referring to Taco Bell as “methadone.”
As far as TexMex goes, my issue with it is the need to pour queso over everything. I just want to pick up my burrito and eat it, not have to get a plate and determine if the queso is real or plastic-ky.
Yes please. Dorothy’s one of my favorites, and one of the few things I can’t stand about her is her tendency to interact with Becky as if she sees her as a win-over challenge instead of just toxic af. At a certain point, girl, come to grips with the fact that Becky is not your friend, and even if she was, she’s a toxic and terrible friend.
At this point, despite liking her as much as I do, I just want Dorothy to take a bow and go to Yale. At least I’ll know she’s living her dream and no one there treats her like Becky does.
Rabid Rabbit
Dorothy’s a Democrat, she’s required to think you can actually work with the opposition no matter how toxic it is.
BBCC
Becky is doing a bit. Dorothy is aware she’s doing a bit. Most of the time, she seems unbothered by the bit.
Daibhid C
Yup. For me, the key moment in their relationship came when Dorothy was at the end of “Look Straight Ahead”, where Dorothy actually got a bit annoyed with Becky, and Becky realised she’d gone too far and needed to walk it back.
Matthew E Davis
I think the whole reference to “it’s ok to want things,” when combined with that face in panel 3, is a subtle commentary on Walky as object of desire on Becky’s part. Her bits have layers, so to speak.
Clif
Since I have seen zero evidence of Walky as an object of desire on Becky’s part, I’m going to be scratching my head on this one for awhile.
Did you mean on Dorothy’s part?
Regina phalange
She does it even when it’s just the two of them. That’s not a bit, that’s being shitty but hoping the other person takes it as a joke so they don’t hate you. And Becky has made it clear from Day 1 that her dislike of Dorothy comes from genuine jealousy, and has done very little to dispel that initial impression. She’s been whining about what Joyce tells her vs. Dorothy even after the time skip. You’re giving Becky WAY too much credit. It’s not a bit. She dislikes her, and Dorothy keeps giving her th benefit of the doubt to the point that she’s a doormat.
justin8448
I suggest that Becky is being a friend to Dorothy, and Dorothy recognizes it.
If Becky hadn’t pointed out to Dorothy that she never does anything for herself, she would have gone to lunch with her ex and his new flame and probably not particularly enjoyed herself. At no time before, during, or after that lunch would it have occurred to her that she could have just nope’d out and done something that she would prefer. Because that’s who she is.
But instead, she received some excellent life advice from Becky, which was so good that she immediately acted on it. Becky also invited her to go on a wacky adventure, which Dorothy could use more of in her life, by her own admission!
Becky is absolutely being a jerkbutt. But she’s also being a friend.
anonymsly
Becky is a terrible friend, if so. Advice probably shouldn’t come as a side dish to a main course of personal insult.
King Daniel
Yeah, that was like a quarter of Mike’s schtick (the rest just him being generally awful), and as we saw in the end, it was not a good thing.
Not just the ex. The ex AND his new girlfriend whom you yourself told him he should ask out.
I think it’s “whom” in this case anyway. The awkwardness would’ve been off the charts, even the logarithmic ones.
Exactly. Maybe I phrased it poorly but it’s refreshing to see Dorothy isn’t such a saint that she’d choose to hangout with her ex and their new paramour over something more selfish.
Dorothy’s actual vice is workaholism, but it kind of feels like the webcomic doesn’t acknowledge that anymore. So now she’s just sort of boring and her only conflict is Walky. 🙁
Is Walky really a conflict? She essentially set him up with Lucy and they are still friends who apparently hangout so I find that hard to believe. Dorothy’s real conflict which won’t even be relevant for years is that she got accepted into her ivy league university and will be transferring next semester and hasn’t told anyone. But yes the workaholic aspect of her character has kind of been resolved perhaps a bit underwhelmingly. Although arguably her new conflict is kind of a result of that old one.
Spencer
The conflict is that Dorothy wants Walky back but instead of acting on it she pushed him towards Lucy (who was blaring sirens and waving a neon sign declaring “take me! I’m yours!” in front of him for weeks now) so she wouldn’t get distracted from her work again.
StClair
And yet she hasn’t stopped being distracted.
Funny, that.
(Humans are not rational, particularly when it comes to attraction and desire. DoA provides multiple examples of that.)
Imogen
The “resolution” was her basically cutting off all her relationships for a week to binge work. And breaking up with the guy she was in love with. You know. A healthy work-work balance.
Did others’ university meal plans work on nearby fast food places? Mine didn’t. I had to do campus dining or scrounge my own cash somehow. Maybe it’s changed recently? I just checked my alma mater and it specifies “in-campus dining” still.
If they do have on-campus Taco Bell, its a new development.
(Remember the story line where Joe was giving out donuts… When someone asked for gluten free, he offered her Taco Bell, but she had to leave campus to get it.)
We had normal campus dining places, but also a few specialty restaurants that took meal plans.
Which was actually a big problem for me, because I worked nights. During the day you could easily get sushi or salad or whatnot. At night the only places open were pizza and burritos. My Freshman Fifteen quickly became my Sophomore Shitload before I learned to cook a bit.
This discussion reminds me of when my college cafeteria suddenly got an in-house Costa (the British counterpart to Starbucks. We also have actual Starbucks, of course, because world domination).
Anyway, the peculiar interactions between the actual cafeteria and the bit that was a Costa meant that easily confused people with anxiety disorders couldn’t figure out who you were supposed to get tea — I think you had to ask the cafeteria staff for a teabag and the Costa for hot water or something ridiculous like that — which is how I discovered that, while I don’t like regular coffee, I do quite like caramel lattes.
196 thoughts on “Usurper”
Ana Chronistic
sub “Chick-Fil-A” and that’s my college experience
I mean I GUESS there might’ve been a McDonald’s in the Cave but idk, I ended up hating them ONLY bc I got in a fight with my bestie once over whether or not to have it for dinner and just quit eating there out of spite
Rose by Any Other Name
I’m so glad Food Theory proved that Popeyes is scientifically better chicken than Chick-Fil-A. So far as I know, Popeyes has never hated me for existing.
Needfuldoer
Popeyes is the best fast food chicken. (Sorry, Colonel.) I just wish they had more locations in my area.
Tim
KFCs chicken sandwich was actually almost as good as Popeyes. Same with JitB.
BBCC
To each their own. I can’t stand Popeyes. It’s dry and old tasting. I have never had any that tasted good. KFC was better, but the last few places I went weren’t great (in the mall) and they weren’t great. I know local places that’s really good though and those are my fried chicken of choice.
BBCC
In fairness though, it’s been several years since I’ve tried it and I’ve only tried it twice or three times. So who knows, maybe it’s better now. I’ll give it another shot sometime, since everyone I know who eats it swears by it.
Hrafn
No. Nando’s is the best fast food chicken. 😛
Kaidah
Fool! Students must eat only at Galasso’s!
Rose by Any Other Name
Agreed. Finding a Popeyes is the hardest thing about eating at Popeyes. Still, worth it if you can manage.
Icalasari
Meanwhile, we’ve had one here for years and thank god because our KFC is trash. Pure trash
Deanatay
*shakes Old Person stick*
Kids These Days and their corporatized food courts! The idea of letting fast food franchises colonize college meal plans was anathema when I was a student, Back In My Day (90’s). Was the food any healthier? Meh. But at least we weren’t bombarded with corporate advertising every time we went to lunch.
(Lessee, shook my stick, used “Kids These Days” and “Back In My Day” – did I miss anything? Pretty sure I get a prize for properly scolding The Youngs…)
Fist_of_Life
you didn’t tell them about walking uphill both ways to the food court, in 3 feet of snow.
Rose by Any Other Name
I would like to join you… but that was already changing when I was in college.
First it was Subway.
Then, in Grad School, it was Quiznos and A&W.
Finally, in more recent years, the campus building where I teach went Chik Fil A. And that was most vexing, particularly on Office Hours days where I had the unpleasant choice to eat there or to eat cold leftovers (our office microwave didn’t work).
Roborat
When I went (University of Alberta), it sucked, because there weren’t any fast food places anywhere near the university area. If you lived in residence and didn’t have a car, it was a bus ride or long walk, so you were pretty much stuck with cafeteria food. Ironically, the U was offered a chance to get one of the first McDonalds franchises in the City, and they turned it down.
Schpoonman
I don’t think you shouted about your lawn, which is a double whammy because even though I’m turning 30 next year I still won’t ever be able to afford one.
Clif
Oh, no! Does that make my lawn even more of a target?
Oh, wait. I rent, on account of I can afford to and maintenance is someone else’s problem who isn’t me.
Does it count if I wave my cane and yell “get off my patio?”
Ana Chronistic
our shouty neighbour yells at people on their OWN lawns
Kyrik Michalowski
Damnit, now I’m craving taco bell.
Shitbird
People crave taco bell?
Doctor_Who
I eat healthier than I used to, but once a month or so I gotta get some Taco Bell.
Doesn’t need to be any menu item in particular, it’s not like a craving for McNuggets or fries. I just want Taco Bell, it’s basically all the same.
They should sell that stuff by weight. “Yeah, give me about a pound and a half of Taco Bell” and you just get a plastic bag filled with meat, cheese, and tortilla bits. I’m imagining it dispensed from, like, a gas pump that just ticks up the price the longer you squeeze the handle.
DailyBrad
Taco Bell is its own thing, I guess. Like, I live in Texas, and we can get MUCH more authentic texmex easily, but some people I know crave it still from time to time. One compared it once to “sometimes, you want to eat a cartoon”, and that sums it up.
I don’t go for it, but I dislike ground beef, so that rules out a huge amount of the menu, so, yeah.
woobie
Nobody thinks it is authentic TexMex. But some people do like it.
StClair
Kind of like my fondness for “orange” and “grape” soda.
BarerMender
Nehi?
Needfuldoer
Radar?
StClair
I’ve actually had grape Nehi! It was okay.
But in my experience, there really isn’t a lot of variation between brands of “grape” (or “orange”) soda. Whether store brand or part of one of the major labels (Fanta, Crush, Shasta, etc etc), most of them have similar (artificial) flavor profiles… and when that’s what I’m in the mood for, that’s what I want.
Moonie
Peach Nehi is the only sugar soda l will consume. And it’s only once every free years. But man that stuff is amazing.
Decidedly Orthogonal
I’m just tripping over the irony of saying, “Authentic TexMex.”
Is that like authentic processed cheese?
Andy
No, because TexMex is an actual cuisine that developed along the border with Mexico. Also, there is such a thing as authentic processed cheese in some cases: ask a St. Louisan about provel some time and if they’ve ever had the real stuff anywhere else.
Authentic is a weird label to apply to food in any case. Americanized foods from other cuisines are often considered inauthentic, but if that’s what people who grew up in those cuisines cooked when they came to America, how can they really be inauthentic? That’s like saying a language is not longer authentic because it picked up loan words from other languages.
thejeff
Often the Americanized versions aren’t really what people from those cultures cooked for themselves, but what they changed up to appeal to Americans they cooked for in restaurants.
Victor
The French have been known to get all kinds of pissy about loanwords. English is one of the few languages that absolutely loves loanwords, they’ve been estimated to be 80% of the language.
“Authentic” is itself a loanword, having made its way to English from French, which got it from Latin, which took it from Greek.
And I wouldn’t call it a weird label to apply to food. It’s helpful to be able to distinguish a food item as not having been Americanized, because in the majority of cases the Americanization of a food is not an improvement. That’s certainly not a universal, Cajun food is after all an Americanization of French cuisine.
Taco Bell is an interesting case, in that it’s absolutely authentic American food. It has its own unique Taco Bell flavor that’s only vaguely related to any other cuisine.
As far as what people who grew up in other cuisines cook when they came to America? Chinese food is an interesting example, in that there is a distinct difference in what Chinese people tend to cook to serve to Americans and what they tend to cook for themselves to eat at home.
On the other hand, no cuisine is truly ‘authentic’ in that every cuisine has been altered by interaction with the rest of the world. Italian cuisine has only involved the tomato for about 500 years. Indian cuisine has only involved chili peppers for about the same period of time. And England’s ‘national dish’ fish and chips requires potatoes, another food that didn’t make it to Europe until about 450 years ago. It’s still happening, salmon’s use in sushi, now one of the most popular sushi fish in Japan, originated in Norway in the 1990s (there was a deliberate marketing campaign).
So ‘authentic’ isn’t completely accurate. But it’s useful shorthand for “cuisine as it exists in the country that it’s purported to be representative of rather than as it’s been altered by recent influences in another country.”
Lokitsu
Actually, Tex-Mex is perfectly valid as a regional cuisine. It’s no different from Creole or KC Barbecue. As long as you don’t confuse it with authentic Mexican….
Clif
TexMex and Mexican are different and Taco Bell is way different, but in my completely objective opinion, the best authentic Mexican food in the world is served in Texas and the best Chineese food in the world is served in Mexico.
We has spoken.
woobie
I remember a Chinese restaurant in Ensenada that was very good but different.
And a few other ‘regular’ restaurants with no tortillas in sight.
Matthew E Davis
When I was doing a postdoc in Canada as a Southern Californian I started referring to Taco Bell as “methadone.”
As far as TexMex goes, my issue with it is the need to pour queso over everything. I just want to pick up my burrito and eat it, not have to get a plate and determine if the queso is real or plastic-ky.
My other issue is a lack of Carne Asada fries.
Thag Simmons
Hardly the worst thing people have irrational cravings for.
Rabid Rabbit
That does seem to be the main moral of Willis’s comics. I don’t understand it either.
Roborat
I don’t consider it food.
A Red Balloon
Now I’M craving tacos, but from Jack in the Box.
Tim
MMMmmmmm. Shitty tacos. *Homer drool*
Thag Simmons
Becky being wildly over-possessive?
I’m shocked, shocked I say.
RassilonTDavros
I think Dorothy might finally be starting to hit a breaking point wrt Becky’s worst qualities.
Regina phalange
Yes please. Dorothy’s one of my favorites, and one of the few things I can’t stand about her is her tendency to interact with Becky as if she sees her as a win-over challenge instead of just toxic af. At a certain point, girl, come to grips with the fact that Becky is not your friend, and even if she was, she’s a toxic and terrible friend.
At this point, despite liking her as much as I do, I just want Dorothy to take a bow and go to Yale. At least I’ll know she’s living her dream and no one there treats her like Becky does.
Rabid Rabbit
Dorothy’s a Democrat, she’s required to think you can actually work with the opposition no matter how toxic it is.
BBCC
Becky is doing a bit. Dorothy is aware she’s doing a bit. Most of the time, she seems unbothered by the bit.
Daibhid C
Yup. For me, the key moment in their relationship came when Dorothy was at the end of “Look Straight Ahead”, where Dorothy actually got a bit annoyed with Becky, and Becky realised she’d gone too far and needed to walk it back.
Matthew E Davis
I think the whole reference to “it’s ok to want things,” when combined with that face in panel 3, is a subtle commentary on Walky as object of desire on Becky’s part. Her bits have layers, so to speak.
Clif
Since I have seen zero evidence of Walky as an object of desire on Becky’s part, I’m going to be scratching my head on this one for awhile.
Did you mean on Dorothy’s part?
Regina phalange
She does it even when it’s just the two of them. That’s not a bit, that’s being shitty but hoping the other person takes it as a joke so they don’t hate you. And Becky has made it clear from Day 1 that her dislike of Dorothy comes from genuine jealousy, and has done very little to dispel that initial impression. She’s been whining about what Joyce tells her vs. Dorothy even after the time skip. You’re giving Becky WAY too much credit. It’s not a bit. She dislikes her, and Dorothy keeps giving her th benefit of the doubt to the point that she’s a doormat.
justin8448
I suggest that Becky is being a friend to Dorothy, and Dorothy recognizes it.
If Becky hadn’t pointed out to Dorothy that she never does anything for herself, she would have gone to lunch with her ex and his new flame and probably not particularly enjoyed herself. At no time before, during, or after that lunch would it have occurred to her that she could have just nope’d out and done something that she would prefer. Because that’s who she is.
But instead, she received some excellent life advice from Becky, which was so good that she immediately acted on it. Becky also invited her to go on a wacky adventure, which Dorothy could use more of in her life, by her own admission!
Becky is absolutely being a jerkbutt. But she’s also being a friend.
anonymsly
Becky is a terrible friend, if so. Advice probably shouldn’t come as a side dish to a main course of personal insult.
King Daniel
Yeah, that was like a quarter of Mike’s schtick (the rest just him being generally awful), and as we saw in the end, it was not a good thing.
Nono
I dunno Becky, maybe be a little apologetic about your possessiveness.
Doctor_Who
Don’t suggest it, she’ll do the opposite. Instead of going around yelling “I’m a lesbian” she’ll start loudly announcing “I’m wildly over-possessive!”
BBCC
I mean, if the options are between hijinks and an awkward lunch with your ex, there’s really no choice. HIJINKS AWAY.
Doctor_Who
Walky would normally totally be down to tag along and engage in a hijink or two, but on the other hand Taco Bell.
Sunny
Not just the ex. The ex AND his new girlfriend whom you yourself told him he should ask out.
I think it’s “whom” in this case anyway. The awkwardness would’ve been off the charts, even the logarithmic ones.
Sirksome
What?! Something that’s even too nice for Dorothy to tolerate!? It’s sad that this counts as character development for her.
Thag Simmons
It’s less the nice and more that it’s her ex and his new gf.
Sirksome
Exactly. Maybe I phrased it poorly but it’s refreshing to see Dorothy isn’t such a saint that she’d choose to hangout with her ex and their new paramour over something more selfish.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Lucy may consider Dorothy a threat and be upset at any attention Walky pays to her.
Imogen
Dorothy’s actual vice is workaholism, but it kind of feels like the webcomic doesn’t acknowledge that anymore. So now she’s just sort of boring and her only conflict is Walky. 🙁
Sirksome
Is Walky really a conflict? She essentially set him up with Lucy and they are still friends who apparently hangout so I find that hard to believe. Dorothy’s real conflict which won’t even be relevant for years is that she got accepted into her ivy league university and will be transferring next semester and hasn’t told anyone. But yes the workaholic aspect of her character has kind of been resolved perhaps a bit underwhelmingly. Although arguably her new conflict is kind of a result of that old one.
Spencer
The conflict is that Dorothy wants Walky back but instead of acting on it she pushed him towards Lucy (who was blaring sirens and waving a neon sign declaring “take me! I’m yours!” in front of him for weeks now) so she wouldn’t get distracted from her work again.
StClair
And yet she hasn’t stopped being distracted.
Funny, that.
(Humans are not rational, particularly when it comes to attraction and desire. DoA provides multiple examples of that.)
Imogen
The “resolution” was her basically cutting off all her relationships for a week to binge work. And breaking up with the guy she was in love with. You know. A healthy work-work balance.
Keulen
I’d find it pretty awkward to have a meal with an ex and the person they’re currently dating or whatever, so this doesn’t seem that odd to me.
Jamie
Did others’ university meal plans work on nearby fast food places? Mine didn’t. I had to do campus dining or scrounge my own cash somehow. Maybe it’s changed recently? I just checked my alma mater and it specifies “in-campus dining” still.
Or is the Taco Bell part of campus dining?
Segnosaur
If they do have on-campus Taco Bell, its a new development.
(Remember the story line where Joe was giving out donuts… When someone asked for gluten free, he offered her Taco Bell, but she had to leave campus to get it.)
Doctor_Who
We had normal campus dining places, but also a few specialty restaurants that took meal plans.
Which was actually a big problem for me, because I worked nights. During the day you could easily get sushi or salad or whatnot. At night the only places open were pizza and burritos. My Freshman Fifteen quickly became my Sophomore Shitload before I learned to cook a bit.
woobie
Civilian MidRats.
Daibhid C
This discussion reminds me of when my college cafeteria suddenly got an in-house Costa (the British counterpart to Starbucks. We also have actual Starbucks, of course, because world domination).
Anyway, the peculiar interactions between the actual cafeteria and the bit that was a Costa meant that easily confused people with anxiety disorders couldn’t figure out who you were supposed to get tea — I think you had to ask the cafeteria staff for a teabag and the Costa for hot water or something ridiculous like that — which is how I discovered that, while I don’t like regular coffee, I do quite like caramel lattes.
Doctor_Who
Tea doesn’t just come from the tap in the UK?