“You’re still on the meal plan?” my friends ask with a condescending laugh.

“One more year,” I always half-heartedly reply.

That’s right. I’m one of those kids.

An upperclassman on the meal plan: the poster boy for sticking with University meal services.

So don’t ask an employee for help next time you’re looking for the peanut butter in Snelling, ask me.

(It’s right over there in the corner next to the cereal.)

Curious how it feels to be a senior eating three meals a day in on-campus dining halls?

Well, there are more than 8,200 students on the meal plan, and of that number, about a quarter are upperclassmen living off campus.

Now I don’t know about those kids, but I’ll probably second guess my decision for the rest of the year.

It all starts when I get in the line for the dining hall with all the people a foot and a half shorter than I am.

Then it continues when I steal a hug from Snelling Dining Hall employee Miss Sandra Patterson, even though her hugs are supposed to comfort the nervous kids in their first days away from home.

She generously gives me one anyway – perhaps to comfort the poor kid who’s 21 and doesn’t know how to cook for himself.

Now once you’re in, it’s time to find a seat.

To give an idea of what the dining scene looks like, it’s important to note that approximately 95 percent of the freshman class is on the meal plan.

To the other 5 percent, I salute your independence.

As I walk in, I try to find the last of my friends who are sticking it out with me on the plan; otherwise, I’ll eat by myself.

Another tip from experience I’ve learned: if you grab a newspaper or something else to read, you don’t look so pathetic.

At least not as sad as you would with your eyes looking straight ahead, or into your food, trying not to see the kids you last saw when they were freshmen at your high school.

But then sometimes it’s just too crowded, there aren’t any more empty tables, and a kid will sit down where I am.

He looks at me with a face that’s only been regularly shaved for a year or two now, and asks how my first days of college are going.

I smile and say, “Pretty well,” all while thinking about how Food Services Director J. Michael Floyd made me sign up last August and pay for the whole school year up front.

In the end, it’s all a learning experience.

Based on my dining experience, I now know what it’s like being the 45-year-old guy going back to college surrounded by young people staring at him in his classes.

I want to reach out to wide-eyed kids in the dining hall and say, “You, too, can be a veteran like me one day, and it all starts with looking smooth by learning how to fill your milk glass with one hand.”

The truth is, I stay on the meal plan because it’s better than anything I’d be able to concoct in the kitchen.

Who cares if I look ridiculous – at least I don’t get any skinnier.

I suppose the one comfort I do have, other than unlimited ice cream, is that all the athletes come in to eat occasionally.

Then I tell myself, “Hey, if it’s good enough for Matt Stafford, its good enough for me.”

And I smile.

Not for the same reason Stafford smiles as he eats – he’s smiling because he knows in a year or two, he’ll be making several million dollars annually.

I smile because I found a clever line to answer my friends with when they say, “Marc, you’re still on the meal plan?”

- Marc McAfee is a senior from Kennesaw majoring in broadcast news.