The University of Rochester is facing a new epidemic on top of COVID-19: a hunger crisis among its student body. Nearly 70% of upperclassmen are out of declining dollars with a month of school to go and no Halloween candy to keep them afloat.
“I’m really worried about what I’m going to eat for the rest of the semester,” said a collection of upperclassmen on all-declining meal plans. “Usually I can just pack fistfulls of candy from professors every day, and by Halloween I have enough to last until Thanksgiving. This year, I blew all of my declining on frappes as usual but now I have nothing to fall back on,” said Sarah Gourmande, who would not give her name to avoid embarrassment. Unfortunately for her, we have access to the student directory.
Among the hungry students is John Gavone, a sophomore living in Southside. He told us yesterday that he has “no hope of making it through the semester. I’m highly considering eating my roommate’s essential oils and her vanilla scented candle.”
Out of desperation, he’s sought out first-year friends who could steal some extra portions from Dougie for him, but even in his starvation, he was adamant. “I’ll never eat from Danforth again. I’d rather starve.”
The administration has begun to take notice of this and is looking for solutions. The number one option they have planned is called Soylent-Quarantine. While they won’t announce what its made of or how they can afford it, the University has released the following statement:
“In these troubling times, we have faced issue after issue that we continue to have to pretend to care about. It has come to the administration’s attention that there is an increasing number of students running out of their meal plans early, hoping to survive off of Halloween candy like usual. Our scientists and witchcraft students have invented a new kind of food that not only can feed our students, but has all the saccharine empty calories of Halloween candy. Soylent-Quarantine for Halloween is a new addition to our COVID reality on campus.”
“To make all this financially possible, we will now be sending all students who are exposed to COVID-19, test positive for COVID-19, or break any COVID-19 related rules on campus to ‘quarantine’ indefinitely on the UR private island in international waters to ‘work’ in the Soylent-Quarantine factory. While their disappearance — I mean indefinite social isolation — will prevent them from earning their degree, there will be no refunds on tuition or room and board.”
To distribute the candy, students living in rooms on the 3rd floor or above will be given buckets full of the Soylent-Quarantine candy. Anyone who has run out of declining and requires sustenance will have to dress up in costumes on October 31 and wander their residence area. Then, the students who were given the candy will pelt the plebs below.
In a poll of students, only 15% of students were excited about the new free meal plan. Sophomore Ethan Turtle told us, “I think the Frat Quad will be a safe bet for candy. All the extra people totally not going to Halloween parties there will have the drunken enthusiasm to really feed a village. Just watch out for the hard candies.”
