CLANDESTINE FLESH FEAST AT MOUNTAIN HIDEAWAY

Food fraud 2L shames W&M

When we last reported on Doug Onley, it was Day Four of his five-day vending machine ordeal and he was packing up vending machine food for his ski weekend at Wintergreen, in remote Nelson County, Virginia. As our last issue went to press, Onley was incommunicado in the mountain fastnesses of his rustic aerie.

Little did we know of his dark secret: It was all an elaborate hoax. Cynically taking advantage of the honor system that pervades every facet of William & Mary life, Onley gorged himself on fine beefsteak once he was out of sight of his long-suffering trainers and handlers.

Alas, alack and woe is us

The Onley debacle is emblematic of the general destruction of every cherished William & Mary law school tradition, according to Chancery Professor Glen Cavern, who wished to remain eponymous. "This is just the final turn in the widening gyre of total entropy," he explained. "Elvis has left the building. We've abolished Libel Night, the composite is decomposed, and without taking future interests, students won't even learn that when A dies, B gets nothing. The Rare Book Room has lost its purpose since the Rare Book is on permanent loan to Bitsy Hawes -- a grad student! We've ditched all the aged and decrepit Taxmaster students who used to make me feel young and alive. Now we're losing faith in our fundamental food. When a society's young begin to reject its very sustenance, it's a sure sign that the end is close at hand."

The last supper

Onley's treachery was consummated on what was to be the last evening of his five-day ordeal. "I was already nuking my last Moon Pie when my betrayer laid out a steak dinner before me in my presence," Onley claimed.

Bull plays key role in excuse

"The room swam before me, and I seemed to see a bull, broad-beamed, stolid and immensely strong, grazing on the tall, sweet grass which grew on the rich black swelling earth. And it seemed that the bull spoke, and said, 'I eat of the grass and I become the grass and also the earth. Why not eat of me and become me and the grass and the earth also?'

"But I was steadfast, and said to him, 'I'm doing this for all the little people. For little Stevie Chin and Tiny Tom Krattenmaker and Slim Tim Singhel, and Susan Schroeder and Petie Alces and Meghan Muldoon, for all those little people whose little bodies have lost the ability to process protein and vitamins.'

"But the bull simply said, 'Ah, the little people. Who needs them? Truly, they will never approach nearer to my essence than a nuked faux-double cheeseburger. Indeed, they may rewrite the UCC, plot against the FCC and curry favor with George Allen, but do they attain true beefiness? Can they ever hope to be at one with the earth?'

"And then it was as if I truly saw the beef for the first time. I knew then that I was not a machine, but a living, breathing piece of meat, and that meat was meant to become one with more meat, and I laid hands on the steak and juice ran down my arm and I was reaching back into deep rich black primal nature itself, back into the unknowable, fertile, timeless earth from whence I came, and there was gravy upon my brow and then it was inside of me and I was chewing on the fleshy slablets of the beef whose fibers yielded at first only hesitantly to my enervated jaws, but faster and faster I gnashed at it with long-forgotten energies, and gulped huge chunks of the life-giving flesh."

Bestial lusts

Onley's indelible legacy of ignominious failure may, ironically, be ascribed to his attempts to extract atypically healthy and natural food from the vending machines. Doug's downfall began with that first vending-machine baloney sandwich, or perhaps even with the primal apple and skim milk, according to Mary Ott, W&M's chief dietitian.

"The heart of man lusts after the things of this earth and the beasts of the field," Ott explained. She said that so-called "soft" lunchmeats, often thought to be harmless, can lead young people to experiment with the serious stuff, until they develop a raging desire for vast expanses of marbly red beef.

Ott said some unfortunates even end up like 3L Jonathan Sheldon, who eats only what he kills, grows, or brews. "If the boy had only stuck with the pimento-cheese spread sandwiches, Moon Pies, and Ike-&-Mikes, he could have pulled through. It's a tragedy." Ott added that the secret of enjoying the pimento-cheezwiz sandwiches is to add Salsa Fries, which "gives 'em some backbone."

Onley's repulsive naturalism also alienated his core supporters and financial backers. Many of them have lived for weeks at a time on soda, candy and coffee, but never had the imagination to make a production of it. When someone finally came forward claiming to represent them, he turned out to be a fruit and salad fanatic.

Thatcher: He's dead meat

"This young man will get no mercy whatsoever," W&M Chancellor Margaret Thatcher vowed. "Our Anglo-American tradition of high-quality prepackaged food is the envy of the world, and he has basely spurned it."

"These alienated young nihilists such as Mr. Onley are unworthy to nurse at the bosom of this bounteous land. In fact, the greatest attraction of this post, for me, was that your American university chancellors have the ability to call out the National Guard when the students act with this kind of impertinence. Off with their heads!"