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In what is becoming more and more painfully representative of his directionless life path, Samuel Maurris '12 has yet to reach a decision on exactly which foods at the Verney-Woolley Dining Hall will constitute his Monday morning breakfast.
Despite having more than enough time waiting in line to decide what he wants to do with his breakfast, Maurris was reportedly speechless when asked for the third time what he would like in his omelette. After almost a minute of inwardly telling himself to decide on ham and mushrooms and to just say it, Maurris allowed the next student in line to go ahead of him, promising the egg ladies he would "get back to them about the omelette."
Maurris left the egg station in tears, claiming that nobody truly understood him.
"It's too much responsibility," said Maurris during an interview at the cereal station. "I mean you can't expect teenagers to be able to narrow this ridiculous amount of cereal options down to just one or two they want to take with them. And there's such an incentive to just get the ones that look appealing, but that I know won't be nutritious in the long run."
Maurris acknowledged that he could theoretically try a little bit of potential options to see which one he ultimately wants, but added that he "can't get rid of the thought that every second [he] fritter[s] away deliberating, there are other students getting ahead on enjoying their delicious, fulfilling breakfasts that they're all so enthusiastic about. The sense of guilt that arises from it all is just impossible to cope with."
Students who have already declared a breakfast acknowledge that they are fortunate. Adina Lydelle '12 said that ever since she woke up this morning, she "just knew that toasted bagels were the way to go. It's my calling."
One available option for Maurris is to create an entirely new, customized breakfast, but he has been reluctant to do so after seeing how many of his peers' independent breakfasts seem to have no use; he considers Martina Herrera '11's breakfast, entitled "Cocoa Puffs With Mixed Milk and Grapefruit Juice," to be even less appetizing than even the most tasteless normal breakfasts.
Meanwhile, sources report Maurris is tormented constantly by the gnawing knowledge that he chose to come to the V-Dub precisely because it offered him more options than the more specialized Thayer Street places that, it now seems, would have made life so much easier. Plus Maurris is paying for this breakfast with his parents' money, a fact which also contributes to his ever-mounting sense of indirection and helplessness.
"I said I wanted to come here to be in control of my own breakfast," said Maurris, "but it seems like in giving myself options I was just postponing the inevitable breakfast decisions I knew I would soon have to make. Dammit! How am I to know this early in my life whether I want pancakes or a waffle? They both look so delicious."
As of press time, Maurris is walking ashamedly to a table with a hodgepodge of irrelevant breakfast foods, his too-full plate unable to hold the scalding V-Dub cutlery he foolishly tried to balance on the pancakes, so that now the only way Maurris can prevent the burning-hot utensils from crashing down to the ground in front of everyone is by cradling them in the the bare crook of his elbow. This is painful; so much more painful than any breakfast should ever have to be, but still Maurris continues walking, pathetically trapped as always between the terrible pain of existence and the terrible fear of embarrassment.
