Desperate times call for…

Daily Editor Betsy Ladyzhets brings you the first installment of Awkward First-Year Things, a series about exactly what it sounds like. In this debut edition, we will be recounting an experience many of us know all too well: the overestimation of our own point status.

You’re walking up to the second floor of the Diana Center, taking the stairs two at a time. It’s Friday, you just got out of your last midterm, and you’re ready for some well-deserved flatbread pizza. You can practically taste it as you climb the flight – the crisp dough, the melted cheese, the rich tomato sauce. Your mouth is watering just thinking about it. As you jump over the last step and land on the second floor, your stomach grumbles: low and pissed off, like the enormous giant in the Jack and the Beanstalk story. It’s ready for pizza. So ready for pizza.

You push past small crowds of people milling around in the doorway to the cafe and waiting in line for the deli bar – you head straight for the pizza. The stack of white boxes beckons you, warm and inviting. You grab a cheese pizza off the top, take a moment to appreciate its savory scent, and head to the cashier. You cradle the box in your arms – it’s easily the most precious item you’ve held in the past month, possibly even in your life.

“Next,” the lady at the cashier calls.

You hand her your ID, then proudly show her the pizza box. “It’s cheese,” you announce.

“They all cost the same,” she answers you, not bothering to give it a second glance. She swipes your ID, looks at her computer, then looks at you. Looks at her computer again, then back to you. And repeat – like some kind of strange choreography.

“What’s going on?” you ask. “Is the ID not scanning? I know I dropped it in a puddle the other day, but I did dry it off, and -”

“Oh, it’s scanning, all right,” the lady answers. “You’re just out of points.”
The world stops.

“Out of … out of points?!” you gasp. You feel like screaming a long, drawn-out, defeated-cartoon-villain nooooo, but you refrain, and instead ask, “But how?”

She shrugs, completely indifferent to your plight. “Too many pizzas, probably. Each one is 7 bucks, and first-years don’t get that many points.”

“But … but I haven’t gotten that many pizzas,” you insist. “Just, like, one a week? And a couple of paninis? And, well, once, when my friends visited for a weekend, I swiped them into Hewitt, but that takes swipes -”

The lady shakes her head. “Nope. It takes points. Seven points for each guest. And you’re out. But if you had some cash, or a credit card, I could charge it to that …?”

You nearly sink to the floor. You don’t have cash or a credit card. You only have an ID, and it has failed you. It really isn’t okay. In fact, you aren’t sure anything will ever be okay again. The cashier must be able to see that in your face, because she turns away from your sad, sad form and calls, “Next!”

And now you need to do something more difficult than calculus, more difficult than orgo, more difficult than navigating Lerner: you need to return a Diana Cafe pizza.

Before putting it back on the pile, you lift the box slowly and press a soft kiss to the cardboard. “I’m sorry it had to end like this, ma cherie,” you whisper tenderly. “Know that you will always remain in my heart.” And then, reluctantly, you let it fall. You wipe away your tears and stomp towards the cafe exit. This is a terrible problem, but you didn’t get into Barnard because you give up when things get tough. Your mind is already working double-time, churning out a solution. And you know, within minutes, that there’s only one thing you can do now. You take someone else’s empty pizza box, heartlessly abandoned on a table, and dig out a black Sharpie from within your backpack. “Free hugs for free points,” you write. You sit down on the floor next to the cafe entrance, prop up your box next to you, and practice your best pleading expression. You’re ready.

New York isn’t exactly a sympathetic city,you think to yourself, but Barnard is a pretty sympathetic campus. Someone will help you out. Someone will get you flatbread pizza. Someone has to. And if not, well, there’s always the Barnard Buy/Sell/Trade.