The clock hits 1:05 p.m. Lunch is finally here after what seems like an eternity, and students pour out of the doors all across campus. Within seconds, walking in a straight line for more than three yards is impossible.

Some students bring lunch from home, while others rush to fill parking lots in the Highlands Town Center. Yet another part of the student population remains: those who will eat the school lunch. 

While their friends around them are munching on BigMacs, burritos and home-cooked meals, these students look down on the tiny amount of food that is supposed to refuel them. In fact, “food” might be a bit of a stretch. Some of the items taste more like they should be called “sustenance,” “rations” or a sort of mystery meat. 

The pizza is incredibly dry, with zero flavor and not a trace of sauce. The “chicken enchilada” is the type of slop they served in the school cafeterias of your favorite childhood novels. The chili cheese just had its portion size reduced for the third time in three years.

For half the menu items, you are eating the food, but tasting the packaging. Judging by the size of the meal, you thought you would be done with it in less than five minutes, but the food is so stale and flavorless it takes you 15 instead. You, along with plenty of other school-lunch eaters, throw out your lunch but keep the chocolate milk, which was honestly the best part.

Every year brings the same complaints about school lunches, but that does not change the fact that students walk faster than they normally do, just to wait in line for the food they swear is so inedible. A select few students even run.

“I line up right in front of the door three minutes before the lunch bell rings,” a hungry student said. “When there’s one minute left, I mentally prepare to react to the sound, then pull up an app on my phone where I can see the exact time down to the millisecond. As soon as I hear it, I run across the quad and into the line. At this point, I’ve memorized the fastest path down to the foot.”

The student arrives triumphantly at the lunch line in less than a minute from across the school in the upstairs English building. He has made record time. He congratulates himself with a piece of garlic bread that has basically melted into the paper bag it was in. After reaping the rewards of his intense run, he gives an ironic final review.

“I can taste the paper and foil,” he said. “It’s really bad.”