Sunday night is a special time. Aside from falling into a panicked frenzy when I realize I still have to do homework for my Computer Applications class, it usually involves walking to Little Taipei, ordering a plate of sesame chicken and enjoying a good meal. Unfortunately, because I live in Larch Hall, my eating situation for the rest of the week isn’t quite as rosy.

I’m going to dub the Maple-Willow-Larch eating arrangements “The Pit,” mainly because of its incredibly poor lighting and lower-level location. I’m sure it’s a wonderful place to eat if you’re a vampire, Nicole Kidman or Michael Jackson, but for those of us who enjoy natural light and have pigment in our skin, The Pit is somewhat dark and gloomy. A shaky, unnatural aura emitted from the weak bulbs scattered around the room is the sole form of illumination; reading the paper in the morning requires huddling at a table near a lamp.

Although some of the food that’s scooped out of its stainless steel serving tub is pretty good (escalloped corn… Mmm), the vast majority is rather nasty, if not a little confusing. For example, I’m still not entirely sure what a “cheddarwurst” is, even after biting into it. Quite often, when the dinner options consist of “beef tips” and “tofu kabobs,” I find myself biting my upper lip and looking thoughtfully at the waffle iron.

The Pit’s shortcomings were made painfully apparent to me recently, when it shut its gates for Easter weekend and I was forced to journey to Oak-Elm for a warm meal. From the instant I walked down the stairs, I was bathed in divine sunlight that flowed over me like I was standing amidst a verdant emerald waterfall. Rays of light glinted off the soda dispenser; the unbridled beauty of the place took me aback.

Well, at least until I saw the food, but it was a nice sensation while it lasted. Fortunately for dorm folk, the Union Drive Community Center is a shining beacon of hope for the entire cafeteria-food world. Not only is it well lit, but it also has a diverse array of different foods to choose from. If the Backyard Grill is serving “loose meat,” then chances are there’s decent pizza at Oregano’s. And if not, there’s always quesadillas!

The disparity got me thinking. Although there’s no way to redesign The Pit to make it into something more like the UDCC, perhaps there are ways we could enhance it to make the experience more enjoyable, and less like “Pitch Black” minus Vin Deisel.

1. When there’s a bucket of nacho chips at the salad bar, don’t provide an enormous spoon as a serving utensil. Nobody uses spoons to serve nacho chips. Tongs, perhaps?

2. Remove the honeycomb ceiling and replace it with something less hive-like. Sometimes when I’m eating I get a strange urge to do little bee dances to direct my friends to the location of the ketchup.

3. Add decent lighting, or knock down some walls. It’s really damn dark down there in the mornings.

4. Replace the hobbit-sized cups with cups that were made for humans. As much fun as it is to fill up five tiny cups and then come back for refills, having bigger cups would make our lives easier and reduce traffic.

5. Get some hot fudge machines down there. Everyone needs hot fudge.

6. More ice sculptures would help improve the ambiance. We could get a different one every day, displaying different wild and exotic animals. Maybe add a couple of fountains, too.

7. Alter the cereal vending machines so that they no longer crush the products into a fine powder when you try to pour some out. Although sniffing lines of Fruit Loops sounds interesting, I’d rather eat them whole.

Perhaps the answer to fixing the declining residence hall population doesn’t involve changing the halls themselves, but rather sprucing up our regular dining centers so that we feel like we’re really getting the most out of our mandatory meal plans. No matter how noisy the halls are at 2 a.m. or how dirty the bathrooms are on the weekend, it’s nothing that hot fudge on my ice cream won’t fix.