You Know You're back at RMU when...

Well, my first post of the New Year, and as if to set the tone for the coming 11 and three quarter months of blogging, this one talks about crap*.

I'm back at Robert Morris University after three glorious weeks away. As much as I'd love to gush about how much fun I had with the 'girl-whose-corrective-lenses-prescription-I-hope-never-gets-stronger', I thought I'd focus on the fact that I ate good food while away from college. In some cases, very good food.

What has this to do with anything? Well, I don't think my stomach was ready for RMU's offerings today. In the past I've heard a number of fellow-scholars mention that laxative ingredients are added to the food to regulate the student's bowel movements, but I always took this information with a grain of salt.

That was, of course, until I went to Caitlyn's for Thanksgiving. While staying with her and eating homecooked or restaurant food, I had fewer bowel movements over the entire week than in a single day at Robert Morris.

You may think that this is too personal to share on such a public forum, but I assure you that I am not alone. Too many times I've seen someone I know blaze past me without the slightest bit of salutation on their part, because their sole objective is to get to a bathroom before it's too late. I've witnessed all too many dorm-mates staggering shell-shocked and white faced out of the bathroom, their very disposition (among other things) quite visibly rattled for some moments afterward.

The novelty of a solid stool being deposited in a Robert Morris cubicle is a cause for celebration, as strangers are united in wonderment, crowding around the bowl to ask the creator of the enviable specimen; "What did you eat?" "How did you maintain such a solid structural integrity?"

Of course, once one has figured this out for themselves, they will not tell a soul, for fear that the one untainted item on the menu sells out before they can get to it, and they are relegated back to the rank of the cheek-pinching plebians, pounding on the stall doors, anxiously crying out "C'mon man! I got class in 5 minutes!", while muttering silent prayers to the patron saint of sphincter muscles...

I'm hoping that by blazing a trail and being the first to openly declare that we have a problem with the 'nourishment' offered by the food-court, I will spark the inevitable revolution that will ultimately put a dozen dentists out of a job, as RMU students will no longer grit their teeth while trying to bear the 220 kPas of pressure on their... Okay, you get the point by now, yes?

I think I've painted a clear enough picture of one of the hardships I have to endure while on this American-adventure, so I might well leave it at that!

*Bet you thought I was being figurative, eh?