I feel that I have a pretty strong sense of respect for the security, staff and administration here at Quinnipiac University. I mind my “P’s and Q’s” toward them as often as I can, and I fully try to believe that there must be good reason behind all that they do and why they get paid so much. However, my respect for the security changed a bit one day last week.

One security guard accused me of stealing in the Café. Excuse me sir, I realize you are trying to do your job, but I’m also trying to get rid of the absurd amount of extra money put on my meal plan that Quinnipiac will take if I do not spend it by the end of the semester. Therefore, stealing is the last thing on my mind. I may actually offer to buy the security guard food before I steal something.

So with that said, aside from being offended on principle that this man actually thought I was stealing something, the funniest part of the whole ordeal was the fact that he thought I was stealing an egg. One single hard-boiled egg. Cool. Long story short, I was waiting by the salad bar with one of my friends for our three other friends, two of whom I was going to be paying for. My friend and I had already gotten our salads and chicken fingers to split and put on top of our salads. Since the grill line must have gone out, killed the turkey, skinned it, and cooked it, we had some time to waste while we waited for our other friends.

During this waiting period we were munching on our chicken fingers. Sure, maybe we’re not supposed to do that, but we ate maybe one each which truly doesn’t matter because there is one flat price for chicken fingers – it is not one of the pay by weight items in the Café. Then, as the munching continued, I accidentally took a bite of my hard-boiled egg. OH MY, CALL THE COPS. I put the egg right back into the very nice paper rectangle that we eco-friendly people here at Quinnipiac use, and stopped eating my salad. The waiting continues. I’m bored. I realize, oops, I forgot a couple cucumbers for this soon-to-be infamous salad. So, I walk toward the box of cucumbers and throw some on, no big deal, then walk back to my friend.

At this point our other three friends are back with us and we’re heading for the cash registers, hoping to find one of the ladies that do not charge $12 for a turkey sandwich, because even though I am trying to get rid of money, let’s be real here, that is unreal. Then the confrontation occurs. Immediately, this security officer, whom I will not describe but highly doubt would be very effective in a high-threat situation, briskly approaches me and says “Miss, you cannot keep eating out of that thing and refilling it, you need to pay and get out of here.” I clearly was taken aback by this accusation and responded with “I’m not eating and refilling I haven’t eaten this food.”

He continues to argue with me that he saw me eat the egg. Well, said egg is still sitting in that nice rectangle for all to see, with a small bite out of it. Shoot me. The argument continues. Sure, I could have stopped responding, but at this point I find this whole egg ordeal just comical. He proceeds to escort me and my friends to the cash register, as if to impose his intimidation factor, while we’re all laughing. I then point out all of the food items I will be paying for, which includes four of our meals, snacks and waters. Now we’re just making a scene.

Mr. Security continues to go off on a rant about how students here steal all the time and that’s why the prices are so high and blah, blah, blah. No. The prices are high because Chartwells has some sort of pricing stick up their you-know-what and feels that it is necessary for a cup of blueberries to be something ridiculous like $5. If you want to really talk prices, then let’s talk about how one single hard-boiled egg costs 29 cents according to one cashier, but that would be different to each one you go to, which therefore means they would be paying about $3.50 for a carton of eggs and I doubt that. But a discussion about prices in the Café could really be a whole article in itself, so the moral of the story here is don’t bite your hard-boiled egg before you cash out.