It’s the sound of 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. rush hour — clinking utensils, scraping chairs and buzzing conversation. But there’s also a strange smell coming from the buffet tables in Stern Dining, and it’s not the food.

“I don’t know when it started happening,” Hristo Ivanov, a freshman Larkin resident, said. “But the kids waiting for lunch just started dropping like flies. The lines aren’t even that long today — turnaround time is seven hours max.” But Ivanov was interrupted by the 115-decibel sound of three dozen stomachs simultaneously grumbling. A quick look into Stern’s dining hall soon revealed the precarious situation.

The buffet tables were still stocked with food, but the lines for the burritos were teeming with students. A corner had been designated to relocate the piling corpses, but there wasn’t enough room. R&DE staffers were sectioning off the area for more students to be able to stand in line. 

When asked why the other non-queue food options weren’t being chosen, Hsu-Hua Lin, a GovCo student who had biked her way to Stern, replied passionately. “The burritos are worth the wait. They always are. I’d rather die than not eat this burrito. “And” — she gestured to the trays of buffet food — “it’s pollock day.”

Something this tragic and at this scale will no doubt be remembered at Stanford for many years to come — with an anticipated increase in death rates as dinner-time specials are introduced. As our crew left the building, we mourned the loss of so many students and tactfully stepped over the body of Lin. May this serve as a warning to all aspiring Stern diners.

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.