Mystery Meat

A few days ago during lunch, Maica, the woman who cooks and cleans for us, came into the eating area with a bag full of red meat. She proceeded to ask us who put the meat in the refrigerator. Naturally, no one had any idea. Maica claimed ignorance as to the origins of the mystery meat.

Since Alyssa was the only person not present at the time (she was still in class), Maica told us it was probably hers. Let’s think about this. Alyssa, Like Emmalie, Shannon, and I, is a college student who is part of the PRESHCO program. She lives in our apartment where we are provided with lunch and dinner every day. We also have juice, milk, bread, and jam available to us. The program pays for our living arrangements. Alyssa does not have dietary issues which force her to provide her own meals. Nor has she expressed an intense desire for red meat. The mystery meat was in a bag that was clearly not the original packaging. We do not have plastic bags lying around for common use. Therefore, it had to come from somewhere else. Perhaps a kitchen in a larger residence hall that may or may not provide us with all of our meals? Maybe? So, how could someone think a random, unmarked bag of meat belonged to Alyssa? I cannot follow this logic but Maica was convinced.

Then Maria suggested that Juani, our landlord brought it. This makes sense. Juani tends to randomly stop by and she sometimes brings food or other necessary household items with her. Maica vehemently denied this.

Now let’s turn this around on the interrogator. Maica is a very forgetful person. If we notice that we need something we can’t just ask her to bring more, she will forget. We need to write her notes. I have written her notes before. Sometimes even when we have a note for her, she forgets. This is why we have no toilet paper right now. Here’s a perfect example: Before classes start, we have a shopping period. The program picks out directly matriculated classes for us to test out. This means we go to a classroom and a series of professors come to tell us about their class. We only go to the ones we are interested in. One day, all the Preshco girls in our house were going to a preview at 1:00. We usually eat at 2:30ish. So Emmalie directly told Maica what we were doing: that we were going to class but would be back to eat lunch a little later than usual. She mentioned it again later. As we were walking out the door, Maica says “So you all aren’t eating here today?” This kind of thing happens a lot.


So could it be that the absent-minded person who brings our food every day brought some meat and forgot to use it? In fact, this scenario solves explains mysteriously lacking lunch we had last weekend. We were given soup that tasted like water and fired eggplant that tasted like nothing. I ate a massive amount of bread out of desperation. We were probably supposed to have some sort of meat dish with it but Maica forgot about it.

To be this all makes sense but in Maica’s mind, the mystery remains unsolved.