With our hectic schedules consisting of exams, club meetings, and school events, one of the few times a college student can just relax and not be annoyed at life is when we are with food. I mean, nothing can go wrong…right? As much as we love to have some quality time eating their favorite meals, it goes without saying that there are certain pet peeves we see throughout campus, whether it’s in the dining commons, local eateries, or your own apartment.
Here are 21 food pet peeves that you might experience throughout your college career. And yes, shots fired at those who do these.
1. Chewing some food and slurping on some drink loudly and obnoxiously in the middle of a lecture
I have no problem with you bringing your Hot Cheetos, your Chips Ahoy cookies, or your healthy baby carrots to lecture. College kids need to get some of that brain food you know? But don’t even start with that loud chomping and munching in the middle of lecture; people are trying to learn!
2. Putting egg shells, vegetable skins, and other trash everywhere except the trash can
It’s always a sad sight seeing someone peel an onion and leaving the shavings on the counter even though the trash can is literally five feet from the peeling area. An even sadder sight is when someone dumps uneaten food in the sink even though (again!) there is a lovely, accepting trash can next to the sink! Please just throw your undesirable food contents in the trash!
3. Stopping your group from eating their meal, despite everyone being starving, to take a basic food picture
If I’m eating with you after I’ve gone through a day without eating because of my four classes, two club meetings, and one hour of tabling, no phone is going to stop me from going on a war path on my plate of food. Your basic food picture will NOT be aesthetically pleasing by the time you take the picture because I will have already eaten half the table by then.
4. Stuffing your mouth to the point where you look like a chipmunk
When you’re feeling hungry, I totally understand that you want to get food in your tummy ASAP. But just throwing the whole meal in your mouth with bits and pieces of little crumbs falling out isn’t going to help it go down any faster. Just slow down.
5. Accepting a friend’s offer to try his or her drink at a restaurant and returning the drink with a demolished, chewed up, saliva-dripping straw
If I go to a restaurant, order a nice refreshing drink, and it tastes pretty good, I would love for my fellow friends to indulge in this exquisite drink. But just for future reference, I will NOT let you use my straw if that results in the straw being vaporized by your mouths, getting all chewed up and what not.
6. Being too damn lazy to change the Brita filter
Don’t you hate it when it’s finally the month where your Brita filter expires, but no one is down to change it because it takes up five minutes of your precious time (I for one am guilty of this)? You end up getting water from water dispensers on campus, eternally waiting for the day someone finally changes it.
7. Thinking about buying food, but then realizing you’re a college student
That awkward moment when you want to buy yourself some delicious food over at the best local eateries but realize your wallet is empty. The only time you have no regrets spending money for some quality food is when you’re inebriated. That’s really sad if you think about it.
8. Asking your friend if he or she wants to split some groceries with you, he or she declines, and then literally asks later if he or she can have that very same grocery item
If you want in on some of my unsalted cashews, you better tell me up front and not ask me to “get small bite of it” later and end up taking like half the jar.
9. Having an individual sit at a four person table by him or herself, causing your group to embark on a long, difficult trek to find a table in the dining commons
If you’ve ever been in a dining common at rush hour with a group of four or more people, good luck finding tables because you’ll always have those individuals that take up an entire table by themselves, their backpacks, and their long boards.
10. Leaving all the ice cream spoons in one cleaner, eventually getting the spoons to be gross and grotty
Please, I don’t want to have to taste pistachio nut in my mint chocolate chip. Please don’t ruin my favorite meal for me.
11. MOOCHING
STAY AWAY FROM MY FOOD FOR THE LAST TIME!
12. Dropping your food at lecture or a dining common and not picking it up
Everybody makes mistakes. It’s cool. We drop things here and there and you shouldn’t feel too judged by it. But don’t try to act sly and pretend you didn’t just drop a whole ice cream cone on the ground and just watch away nonchalantly. Pick up after yourself and keep the eating clean.
13. Having the hottest debate of today’s times: is it called a waterfall or birdy?
Just to set the record straight and to end this debate once in for all (and I know people are still going to attack me for this), sipping your friend’s drink without putting your mouth on it is called a birdy.
14. Stinking up the whole lecture hall with your dank-smelling foods
Again, just to reiterate, I am totally okay with your Doritos, tortilla chips with salsa, and your beef jerky. But don’t come up in this lecture hall with your smelly garlic pesto chicken sandwich and your sides of expired cheese; it’ll rattle my brain like no other.
15. Taking twice as much as other people at potlucks
Potlucks, especially in college, are typically fun get-togethers where individuals place their own special foods onto one dinner table to share with the rest and have a good time. But there’s always that buzz kill who doesn’t know what portions are and just takes a hefty amount of everything, leaving the others to fight over to see who gets the last serving mac n’ cheese.
16. Taking out food from the microwave early before the timer ends and not clearing the timer
When you come to the microwave and its at “0:01” and no one bothered to clear it back to show the time. Please, someone tell me that this gets on your nerves as well. It’s one button!
17. Seeing that there is a sign saying “DO NOT TOUCH” on one of your roommates foods and you think about taking a small bite anyways
I may not know the questions to my midterms or I may not know the deadline of my essay, but I WILL know when my nachos went from 20 chips to 19 chips. Sharing is not caring when it comes to food.
18. Grabbing 1000000000 napkins from the dining common napkin dispenser to clean up an itty bitty crumb on the mouth
I understand if you need a hefty amount of napkins for cleaning up a major soda spillage or if you dropped your whole plate on the ground, but please save some trees if you’re planning to simply wipe your mouth or wipe your hands.
19. Asking, “Is it cool if you spot me, I’ll pay you back” for a meal, and never actually happens
It would always be nice to help out a friend who is a starving college student who “accidentally” forgot his money at his dorm. Sometimes we all need a helping hand. But other times, or a lot of times, that friend can also be quite forgetful, forcing you have to scout him or her out to passive aggressively ask, “Hey, is it cool if you give Venmo me a few bucks for that one meal we had?”
20. Holding your utensils in a stranger manner
I’ve seen someone at Panda Express use two plastic forks as chopsticks. That is all.
21. Saying someone’s eating antics are disgusting, but you have your own disgusting mannerisms that you don’t seem to notice
We all have our own disgusting habits. Let’s just all agree to that statement. No one is immune to weird antics that we pick up from different situations.