The Tragedy of the Cafeteria Waffle Maker

I walked into the cafeteria Monday morning with my fellow Girls State delegates eager for breakfast. While waiting in line, I overheard a conversation going on in front of me discussing waffles (my favorite breakfast food) being on the menu for breakfast. So as any waffle lover would do, I skipped the short line for the “normal” breakfast food and wandered to the long line of delegates waiting patiently for waffles. From the back of the line, I could see that these waffles weren’t just any waffles but were hotel waffles. Hotel waffles were different because they were made by filling up your cup with batter from a spigot, pouring your waffle batter onto the specially shaped waffle pan, closing your waffle pan and sandwiching your batter in between two hot waffle pans, and finally twisting the sandwich pan to start your agonizingly long waffle timer. This procedure made waffle making more personal, thus making your waffle taste that much better. I waited patiently, but as I neared the front of the line, my patience began to run out. There were only two hotel waffle makers each with a timer of about 2 minutes per waffle, so I understood why the line was so tedious, but what I couldn’t understand was why the delegates were standing around aimlessly while the waffle pan was wide open with no waffle inside. I drew closer to the front of the line just to discover that not only was there only one working spigot for the waffle batter but it also moved at not even 1 mile an hour. I watched those in front of me painstakingly fill up their cups with batter while being forced to watch the batter slowly drip into their cup, killing the minutes off of their breakfast time. I tried to get the non-working spigot to, you know, work, by tipping it forward but was unsuccessful. I tried the same thing when it was my turn to use the slower spigot but it was no use; I would have to bear the agony of watching the batter slowly drip into my cup as the dozens of delegates behind me were forced to wait in line as anxious and clueless as I was just moments before. All of this for only one hotel waffle… but it was totally worth it.

-Hattie Eaton, O’Leary City