dirty-joose stankhausen

This blog has primarily been about cake but right now it is about some awful, awful shit. Tonight, as I do some nights, I ate at Stevenson, one of many campus dining halls at Oberlin. I looked up the menu in advance and decided, "Sure, this might be okay." Here is the menu. Annotated.

You might notice that there is moussaka listed at the bottom. Moussaka is not my favorite Greek food, but it is Greek food at least so usually better than not-Greek food. I was a little sketched out because there was a strange skin on top of it that I attributed to the potato starch crusting but now I'm not so sure. Below is a picture of this moussaka right before I threw it violently into the trash. 

All the moussaka I've ever had has consisted of eggplant, bechamel and meat. I can accept the lentils as a substitute for meat---actually, the five lentils hiding shamefacedly beneath the blanket of instant mashed potatoes were pretty good. All five of them. But never in my life have I had carrots, potatoes and zucchini in my damned moussaka and I would like to keep it that way. [note: apparently wikipedia says that moussaka can contain the above ingredients. Fuck wikipedia.] The whole damn thing was absolutely tasteless and there wasn't even any fucking eggplant to distract myself with. Apparently the eggplant was balls, too, according to a friend of mine who suggested a grilled cheese with tomato. I ended up eating a plateful of melons and a bite of some bullshit pie.

This was quite possibly the worst thing I have ever put in my face. This was like leftover night at my mother's house if she ever went insane (more insane?) and forgot what salt and spices were like. This was like being given your favorite candy and having it taste like clorox and anal lube. This was like being ass-raped in the face. I usually defend the campus dining services because generally the food is better here than most places, and you do have many choices, but no more. I think I permanently hate food now, thanks to that moussaka. 

I can't even be bothered to be funny because this food was that goddamn bad. I guess I am effectively a fruitarian these days because that's all I can stomach.

Also, carrots are fucking nasty. That is all. 

PS- regarding the notes on the first picture---I was a bit amazed at the concept of a turkey chop, and even though I'm trying to munch roots and leaves mostly these days, I probably should have gone with it. There are no turkeys in Asia, though. At least not naturally. Fuck.

Some bullshit tricky-ass nonsense fucking cake.

So, I don't know if this is really a thing because my mother tells a lot of bullshit stories, but apparently the night before Halloween (October 30th for the mathematically challenged) is called Cabbage Stalk Night. I don't know why, as cabbages have traditionally had very little to do with Halloween as far as I know because they are exceedingly difficult to hollow (hallow? haha) out and put a tea-light in. (Why are they called tea-lights anyway? Are you supposed to hold your tea over them to keep it warm?) But, Cabbage Stalk Night it is. And traditionally, this is the night for youthful pranks (=vandalism) such as egging, papering, pumpkin-destroying and other such fun activities. Personally, I think this was just my mother's excuse for doing horrible things to the neighbors that she didn't like, but it could be a true thing.

Anyway, the point is, someone played a series of horrible tricks on me.

First, I got all dressed up as Little Red Riding Hipster so as to go to what was advertised as a party. In typical fashion, it appeared to be a bunch of people in crappy costumes playing beer pong, while a bunch of really unattractive girls watched. So this was trick number one. Not a party. But I guess there was free beer so not all was a loss.

Then, I went upstairs for some activities, which meant watching the Neverending Story. Which is awesome, and also fine. But then I pissed someone off and we had to leave. By leave, we meant, go downstairs and drink more free beer, and....

...suddenly, I was transfixed. Cake. Lots of cake. Just left sitting on the counter. I asked Hannah if this cake were okay to eat. It was okay to eat it. This is the cake.

As you can see, this is clearly some Bad Cake, or possibly even Bullshit Cake. But we'll get to that. To all outward appearances, and given the circumstances, you can tell this is bullshit cake. It has bullshit Duncan Crocker chocolate icing on it, and is decorated with plain Betty Heinz bullshit-vanilla icing. I was taken in by the pretty colors of the candy on top, and the sparkling sugar, and thus I neglected to register what was going on. I ate a bite of the cake---about what I expected but actually rather moist and not godawful though I was a bit drunk. Working my way inward I encounter a candy, which I begin to chew.

OMFG that's a goddamn fucking chewy sparkly skittle!! Who in their right fucking mind, I don't care if Martha Stewart and Paula goddamn Deen stayed up all night smoking PCP and scissoring....fCUK, WHY WOULD YOU PUT A FUCKING SKITTLE ON A CHOCOLATE FUCKING CAKE?!!?!?
This is worse than tuna noodle casserole. This is worse than a strawberry and mayonnaise jell-o parfait. (This was a real recipe in a 70s cookbook I had.) Schizophrenics know not to eat skittles and chocolate, and I had one try to cook a pine tree in the middle of my kitchen once. This was fucking awful. That's when I looked around and saw this:

This is abandoned cake.

Abandoned cake. Cake left sad and alone, slowly hardening in the brisk fall air, left by 19 year old girls alongside half-finished beers (shortly thereafter finished), sad under the harsh glow of cheap fluorescent lighting. This cake had been left to die. As well it should have. Were this cake in Sparta, it would be considered retarded and left on a windswept cliff for better or for worse. This cake would have been merely rather bad cake, but the skittles and insanity of those who perpetrated this wrong upon the world have downgraded this poor cake to Supreme Bullshit Nonsense Cake. 

Don't fucking put skittles on your cake. Evan and Hannah agree.

This is bullshit cake.

I spat out my skittles along with a portion of uneaten cake, as did Evan (my roommate). We still ate at least another piece of cake each, but were careful to remove all skittles in advance. 

Later Hannah found an orange gumdrop in hers. Seriously, girls, WTF? I know you're young and in college and all, but really? Really?

The night went on to include Hannah and Evan playing beer pong. 

Note another piece of abandoned cake in the front there. Sometime during the course of this game, Evan appears to be losing and announces, "You know, if I ever lost, my father-"

"Lost at what?"

"Anything. My father said he would TAKE AWAY all my clothes...and RAPE me."

The evening ends with Evan drawing a rather good caricature of Hannah on the wall.

See? Also, Hannah explained why Evan is trying to destroy her pink bug person with a giant airplane cock missle, but I can't really see it here. It made perfect sense at the time.

Kinda.

Anyway, the evening finally wrapped up with some sort of epic fail. I don't remember what it was, but there is photographic evidence.

The moral of the story is, on Cabbage Stalk Night, do not eat random cake without first thoroughly examining it for bullshit. That would have been a great cake memory, because any found cake generally is good cake. But for the skittles. I've been hating on skittles my whole life and now I know it was all in anticipation of this moment. You can't just sneak skittles into shit. They're not fucking raisins.