The Whack Shack, Vol. 4: Meals, or Welcome back to Middle School, Bitches!

By Nicole Cater

Every morning at 10:30 you get to talk to a dietitian, who knows what your calorie count should be and gives you meal options for the next day. You can ask for an extra portion of one thing per meal. If you’re not feeling a particular option, you can skip that altogether. Surprisingly, most of the food is pretty good. But all you do in the joint is eat, sleep and group. You learn early to order extra portions, and order everything, because, well, the portions are tiny. On your first day, you don’t get to choose your menu; you are at the mercy of the food gods.

Here is my first day menu: 

Breakfast: One cup of decaf (you never, ever get caffeinated coffee), corn flakes, milk, two sausage links, and a hard-boiled egg so hot it melted the plastic cup it came in. I ate the sausage and used some of the milk for my coffee.

Lunch: Coffee, milk, carrots, a sloppy joe, apple sauce and Jello. Once again, milk in the coffee, and I ate the sloppy joe.

Dinner: Coffee, milk, green beans, a baked chicken breast, peaches and Jello. I just don’t like peaches, I hate Jello. And how the hell are you supposed to eat meat without a knife? We looked like a bunch of barbarians eating our meat.

Things got better when I could pick. Bacon (oh hell yes!), oatmeal, French toast, mac’n’cheese, pizza, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, apple pie, snickerdoodles (to die for, everyone knew I could be bought for them), ice cream - all solid picks. Under no circumstances were you to order the beef stew. It looked like something the dog yakked up. Ugh! I did hold forth on the ridiculousness of not receiving knives because exactly how badly can you hurt yourself with a plastic knife? The torque alone of trying to cut yourself would break the knife. Duh! 

However, you needed to order every option available. Why?  Because if you didn’t want it, someone else did. Like I said, welcome back to middle school. You want my Jello? I’ll trade that cookie you got there. You gonna eat your potatoes?  This was all strictly forbidden. And yet, it happened, not just quietly, but yelling across the room, as the guards, er, techs watched. They did say a token “Don’t do that,” but no real effort was made to stop it.

All in all, meal time was a major event on the ward. It was something to be looked forward to, not really because of the food, but more because it was something to do. You could sit with your clique. Yes, cliques in a loony bin. How crazy, right?  But then again, if the shoe fits…  And you could talk about whatever you wanted, not just your feelings.

So, if you find yourself committed, order as much food as possible so you can trade. Order double entrees. And for god’s sakes, make sure you sit with the cool kids!