Flying Too Close to the Sun: My Dining Point Haul That Got the Plans Changed
Pride. The human ability to push the limit further and further. Hubris. Loss. How far is too far? Those of you who know me know how much I turn out the dining point hack. I’ve been dubbed “the dining point sugar daddy,” or “the latte gremlin.” Even “Icarus.” Because I took it too far. In all actuality, this change was bound to happen, and it probably wasn’t my fault? But I find it funnier (and easier to cope with) that I played a nonzero-percent role in getting the dining plans killed changed. So come with me, on this hyperbole-filled Homeric epic, based on true events, about how I failed the BU dining community. And… how I failed myself.
When I first arrived on campus as a bumbling freshman, I’d assumed to pick the unlimited plan. I didn’t know any better, and these were the times of take-out COVID dining halls. But as I met more people, I’d heard tell of dark dealings. Whispers of a myth larger than life. Tales of avarice unbound: unlimited Grubhub on-campus ordering. Late Night, Panda, Starbucks, the all-holy Canes. All for the taking! I was enamored. After hours of research, scouting forbidden documents in the most evil of places (Reddit posts), I’d found it: the 330-to-250 Hack.
The concept was simple, but a classic. It almost felt like a twisted game. The less you ate in Fall semester, the more you’d eat come spring semester. How long can you go, before giving in to the pangs of hunger? Can you survive the slow crawl into madness, as you carefully ration what little you already have? My sophomore year’s haul was impressive, sure. $2400 all for me. All for the (at the time) brand-new Halal Guys. But I knew I could do better. I could push the bar just further. If I loosen the thread keeping my afloat, will I sink or swim? There was only one way to find out.
Going into fall semester junior year, I had one goal: NO dining hall. It seems easy at first, coming from months of home-cooked meals. But as hunger set in, so did desperation. I’d walk past the vast windows of Marciano Commons, watching gluttony unfold. All I could do was watch. I was denied entry from the hall, by my own ego — spurned by my own hand. But I pressed on. In total, I went to the dining hall 3 times total last semester. My friends thought me a madman. But I showed them.
I showed all of them, as I opened the Student Link over winter break to see a number that was too good to be true. Was this what it was like to open the Ark of the Covenant? $3160. More than the per-semester cost of the entire 250 Plan, all in dining points? Surely it was too good to be true, that they’d strip my trophy away from me. But no, the splendor remained, and with it came Times of Plenty. It’s a great feeling when your friends either can’t or don’t want to get food at the GSU, and you can cover them. When meals can appear at the snap (or rather, swipe) of a finger. When you can provide coffee to an entire publication staff. It’s absolute power. But what wasn’t stripped from me was instead taken out on all of us.
When I saw the dining plan changes, I wept. Not for me, no. I’ve had my time in the Sun. I’ve flown too close to it. I wept for those who haven’t had the chance to experience it yet — and those who never will. This is my burden to bear, like Atlas, holding the weight of the world on my shoulders. I now hold the weight of all the green reusable containers, as I walk a scarred man.