For the past week, students have been finding spaghetti in places where spaghetti has no right being. I’m talking about spaghetti stuffed in lockers, spaghetti clogging toilets and spaghetti quite literally bursting out of the woodwork. Some have claimed the perplexing pasta to be an April Fools prank while others have claimed it to be a curse brought on by the spirit of Mario Rossellini, the Pizza Party politician who was assassinated by a coconut outside the John F. Kennedy Library two months prior.
One student even posted an article on his conspiracy blog blaming an “interdimensional cross-rip” for the pastamonium. Central to his theory was the idea that an alternate dimension exists for every type of food and that our university has merged with a spaghetti-based reality. If this is the case, that would also mean that in other dimensions, human beings could be seen as commonplace food items akin to avocados or breakfast cereal.
Regardless of these various potential culprits, one thing that everyone can agree upon is that the worst place to discover spaghetti is, ironically, in their mouths. One particularly flustered student, Michelangelo DeAngelo, described his initial encounter with the miraculously manifesting mystery noodles in terrifying detail.
“I ordered a blueberry-lemon-cream donut from Dunks like I do every morning,” said DeAngelo. “I take a bite, and what do I find? Spaghetti! The whole damn thing, full of spaghetti! How does that even happen? I go to wash down my disgust with a nice sip of hot coffee, but no liquid’s coming out. Huh? That’s weird. I pop off the lid. F—ing spaghetti!”
The scenario described by DeAngelo was far from an isolated occurrence. The campus Food Court and Dining Commons have become entirely spaghettified with hungry students and faculty unable to fill up a drink at the soda fountain without walking away with a cup full of noodles.
And while it may seem that the culinary staff could be in on the joke, to prove their innocence, one Sal’s Pizza employee filmed himself shoving an uncooked pizza into the oven only for it to roll out on the other end of the conveyor belt as a platter of noodles in the shape of a pizza. Strangest, and most unsettling, of all: The spaghetti is always ice cold.
With the student body being unable to cope with such limited menu options, the Campus Counseling Offices have never been busier. Even our esteemed Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco stopped by to vent about his pasta-fueled nightmare according to one anonymous councilor who found the chancellor’s dream funnier than the fine print of a client confidentiality agreement.
“He was shaving his neck,” said the counselor. “He accidentally nicked himself, but instead of blood, a thin-ish, yellowish nodule poked out of his throat. He grabbed the nub and began to pull out a long strand of spaghetti. It kept going and going until he couldn’t stop it. One long, infinite noodle. Next thing he knew, he was literally drowning in spaghetti. He woke up in excruciating pain in a hospital bed with a large pregnant belly and his legs wide open.”
This portion of the story has been omitted due to its graphic nature.
“Then he woke up for real, sweaty and terrified out of his mind. In a panic, he tore off his covers to find, to his utter horror, a small clump of spaghetti in between his legs. Or at least, that’s what he said happened. I gave him a saltine and sent him on his way.”
Whether the chancellor’s proposed night terror was a reflection of real life or a figment of fantasy, it appears his fears are genuine because as of this past weekend, he has placed a campus-wide ban on spaghetti. Suspiciously, following the chancellor’s ban, the spaghetti has ceased to appear.
Despite this, some students have derided the chancellor’s actions as an act of war against all UMass Boston Italians. While the origin of the pasta still eludes even the most astute scientists and philosophers, many believe that this so-called “spaghetti saga” is far from over. If that turns out to be the case, I will continue to provide comprehensive coverage of the story as it unfolds.