It’s an age-old story: you arrive at college after winter break, bundled up and ready to start anew, when you realize you’ve forgotten to build up an immunity to dining hall food. Week after week, more innocent students keel over, seize in pain, and explosively shit in all directions, propelling them around in a circle like a top, while the rest of us are helpless to do anything but stand idly by and watch our fellow Carls suffer. 

While we at the Carletonian cannot prevent these violent “shit fits,” as medical professionals have taken to calling them, we can offer a helping hand to those unaffected bystanders. Bored of Bon App’s food options by week six, these students just want to add a little excitement to their cafeteria experience without subjecting themselves to shit fits. The letters fly in — please, Carletonian, lend me your wisdom, that I may once again know joy! O Carletonian, give me some ounce of knowledge, that I may spark my weary tastebuds into activity! Ben, please clue me in on the secret spice, the forbidden flavoring, the single sparkle, the Herbert Hoover, the cafeteria combo, the cheddar cheese that may set t my mouth and throat alight and make me glad again! — and so we are forced to offer our advice. Please find enclosed fifteen ways to spice up your Bon App experience.

1. Salt – countless civilizations, from the Greeks to the Egyptians to mountain goats to The Mountain Goats to the Aztecs and beyond, have held salt in high value for its use in seasoning and its vital electrolytes. Its rich history can be further explored in Mark Kurlansky’s “Salt: A World History.” Today it sits on every table, waiting to be sprinkled on a bland food item. Try some. It’s life-changing. Try some more if it didn’t change your life enough. Add the whole container. Yes. Your journey is almost complete. Also explore its cousins road salt, epsom salt, basalt, Himalayan pink salt and somersault.
2. Snort tea right out of the bag
3. Crushed up glass from the salt container you emptied – this is the second phase of the benefits of using salt on your food: the more-mellow-but-still-sharp taste of the fragments of glass that once housed those few thousand granules now sitting in your belly could be exactly what you need to add some excitement to an otherwise mundane set of meal options. 
4. Precede every meal with an hour of silent meditation – this works especially well if you do it with a goat.
5. Eat with a friend – just like all experiences in life, a meal in one of our state-of-the-art facilities tastes so much better when you have a special person in your life keeping you company. Plus, maybe they will sneeze into your food.
6. The inside of a lava lamp – what is that stuff? How does it taste? This reporter is determined to find out.
7. Dip your fries in mashed potatoes – I know this sounds crazy, but the savory flavor of fries and the savory flavor of mashed potatoes interact with each other splendidly. Wow! So good! With this trick up your sleeve, there will be no stopping the horde of people begging you for the secret recipe. 
8. The inside of a regular lamp – lava lamp was a bad idea. 
9. Spin the wheel. Whatever body part it lands on is the part of the turkey you pull off and incorporate into your meal in some creative way. Personally, I always enjoy spreading yogurt on the underside of a turkey foot and eating it like toast. To submit your creative turkey-themed idea to our photo contest, visit the music video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Ha. You’ve been rickrolled. Take that.
10. Someone’s ashes – according to some religions and laws, use of human remains in food is not cool. However, everybody is in agreement that use of human remains *on* food is cool. Once cremated, human remains taste like the deceased person’s personality  — bitter, sweet, sour, angry, kiwi-strawberry, etc. Mix and match to find the best combo for your tastes.
11. Shredded textbook pages – what else would we use these for? They are not only high in fiber but also enhance absorption of content material on multiple levels when consumed as a seasoning. Why do you think fish & chips is always served wrapped in newspaper? It’s because taking a chomp fills you up with fish and the day’s events. The same principle applies when you sprinkle convoluted walls of text, broken down into bite-sized pieces, onto a taco.
12. Eat the table instead – if you’re still hungry, take a few bites of your chair, which may still have a hint of ass on it.
13. All-pudding diet – as the old saying goes, “When you shit in a circle, pudding will workle.”
14. The voice cast of “The Bee Movie” – look me in the eyes and tell me you aren’t appetized after 91 minutes of hearing Jerry Seinfeld and Matthew Broderick talk about honey. That’s right, you can’t. Imagine how good they would be sprinkled on a slice of floppy, orange-ish pizza or eaten with a forkful of room-temperature, orange-ish breakfast potatoes. 
15. Bury your face in your food and begin crying – the up-and-down jaw movements caused by your sorrowful sixth-week wails will force food into your mouth bite by bite, and before you know it, you’ll have a totally clear plate. 

It is important to stay mentally stimulated here at Carleton, and an important factor in mental stimulation is change to routine. With these tips ingrained in your mind, we hope that you can break the cycle of only eating boring, shit fit-inducing meals. 

Note: the Carletonian does not officially endorse snorting tea, ingesting glass, stealing and eating live turkeys, destruction of property by eating it, cannibalism of voice actors or pudding.