Adventures In Elected Office

I’ve held elective office exactly once. In college, my fraternity elected me to run the kitchen that fed 80 members. Yes, I was in a fraternity. And all those stereotypes you hear about bubbas who get poor grades, engage in excessive partying, and possess a general lack of sensitivity? Yup, that was me. Hey, I was 21 going on 15.

The guy who ran the kitchen before me was heralded for serving excellent meals. The day I took control of the kitchen I looked at the books and saw why. There were numerous unpaid bills to food vendors. The debt took up a big chunk of my budget, but the vendors had to be paid if we didn’t want to get cut off. Staring at the ledger and the pile of bills, I knew exactly what it felt like to take over running Detroit.

I considered bringing the issue up at our weekly all-members meeting. But I thought about the guy who, at a recent meeting, had said “I wanna know which one of my Brothers stole my bag.” Most likely he’d misplaced it or smoked it up himself, and the accusation wasn’t well received. It wasn’t good politics. What was done was done, and I didn’t want to call out a brother.

Again, just like Detroit.

So I went into the kitchen to formulate a plan with Benny, our cook. When Benny lowered a pot onto the stove with a clanging noise, a wave of bugs scurried up the wall. I sighed and added pest-control to the list of deferred expenses. Benny and I worked out an austerity menu which allowed us to pay off the vendors and still “feed” the troops.

Two months later someone nailed a frozen hamburger to my dorm-room door. Written beneath the patty in magic marker was the word “ENOUGH!!” Given the state of the kitchen finances, I contemplated removing the burger and returning it to the walk-in freezer. But I didn’t.

A situation like this has incredible Reality TV potential. Just picture a guy in a baseball cap carrying a shovel and scouting for road-kill in a show called Frat Kitchen. Rachel Ray couldn’t touch that for excitement.

In summation: Elected office is a thankless job, largely because other people do it before you. They spend money to keep everyone happy and leave the next person a debt mess. I don’t wish it on anyone.