In Defense of Cafeteria's (or as I like to call them: Sammy's playplace)

For those of you who know me well enough to have shared a meal with me, you may have noticed that I have a strong affinity for essentially anything with even marginal nutritional value. Most people say their college years were the best years of their life. I concur, and while I enjoyed living in close proximity to great friends (well, and the occasional drug dealer for my senior year), one of the most pleasurable experiences was waking up every morning knowing full well that a dazzling array of french toast, sausage, scrambled eggs, juices, and a cereal bar lay waiting for me. Many college students considered breakfast an unnecessary peripheral; I was beside myself most mornings if I didn't get there in time for the hot breakfast bar to still be fresh.
Presently, I am working at a hospital in the fine city of Muncie, Indiana. The gig is alright: the work can be somewhat boring, the pay is mediocre, they provide sufficient housing. However, the kicker is that when I started they gave me a magical ID badge. I can step into this cafeteria and load up on whatever I like, knowing full well that it will be charged to my employer. Somehow, I traded a paucity of medical knowledge and my physical presence following doctors, for a little bit of cash and a golden ticket into "Sammy's Play-place" (Sammy should be another post altogether, but for now, understand he's the named imaginary tapeworm my close friends claim I have).
Every day, I can wake up, saunter into the hospital cafeteria, and craft a sausage-laden, egg, cheese, and bacon biscuit. I can sample the prepackaged bowls of cinnamon french toast, golden grahams. Heck, if I'm feeling wild, I can even pound a couple sugar cookies and leftover egg salad sandwiches. Further enhancing the experience is access to a cafeteria world formerly unknown to me. That is, the prepackaged genre of foodstuffs. In my collegiate days, cafeterias were somewhat prepared for gentlemen with voracious appetites. The hospital, however, totally unprepared. After I fill my requisite styrofoam containers with the salad bar, taco bar, wrap bar, and/or pasta bar (all of which are charged by the ounce, by the way), I can then pick up virtually any candy bar, bottled beverage, or delightfully trans-fat-laden hostess treat.
I remember growing up hearing stories of a friend whose grandfather owned a grocery store. Whenever this girl visited Minnesota, her grandpappy let her sample anything from the store she desired. Even as a young pudgester, I realized the glorious implications of this. I pictured myself prancing (that is, prancing in a very heterosexual way), down the isles, taking bites out of hunks of extra sharp cheddar cheese and snapping beef sticks in my chompers. I could dive headlong into the bins of peachy-O and imitation sweedish fish. Shoot, I would even probably be able to snag some of those delightful looking rotisserie chickens that are always calling to me, "come, enjoy my delightful basted thighs." Whew, sorry, I got a little off-track there. Point being, when you suddenly have access to a seemingly infinite pool of formerly pricey items, the excitement is almost too much. So now, I can indulge my curiosity if paydays are as poor a candy bar as I remember (they are), if now and laters are still as ridiculously hard as they were (they are harder), and if kashi's go lean bars cause the same gastrointestinal problems as their cereals (they do).
And yet, cafeterias still have a bad wrap. All I know, is that any place I can be charged by the ounce for a foodstuff, thats where I want to be. Especially when its someone else who's covering my charges.