Author Archives: f002549

Fork in the Tray

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1. Title: Fork in the Tray

2. Informant info:

Chris Boone is an student at Dartmouth, part of the class of 2017. He is from Trumbull, Connecticut, and is studying government. He was a trip leader for some of the incoming freshmen. He tends to eat at Foco on most days.

3. Type of lore (Genre and Sub-genre): Customary, Superstition, Magic Superstition

4. Language: English

5. Country of Origin: Hanover, New Hampshire, United States

6. Social / Cultural Context: In most dining halls in Dartmouth, there are utensil dispensers that dispense plastic utensils one at a time. Sometimes, someone takes more than one fork and leaves the extra fork in the tray. When the next person comes to get a fork, there is a high chance that they will rather take a new fork than the one sitting in the tray. No one truly understands why people do this, but on certain days you can see multiple forks piled up in the dispenser tray in Novack Café.

7. Associated File: N/A

8. Transcript: N/A

9. Informant’s comments:

“Haha it is kinda funny how this is even a thing… I know I’m guilty of doing it a couple times. But when i go to get a fork from the dispenser and there is already one in there, it just makes me wonder… why was it left there? It just seemed… unclean… haha. It’s a very weird situation, many times i just tell myself ‘this is ridiculous’ and take the fork anyway. But I find it hilarious that people do this.”

10. Collector’s comments:

I believe the superstition of the fork in the tray exists due to a variety of aspects of the human psyche. The way I see it, when most people go up to the dispenser and see a fork already in there, they wonder “how long as the fork been there?” It could be anywhere between 30 seconds or all day. As the fork sits there, people assume its getting more and more unclean overtime, making it more desirable to just grab a new one from the dispenser. I just find it amazing how Dartmouth College students will drink beer after a ping pong ball that was recently rolling on floor of a fraternity basement falls into it, but refuse to grab that fork in the tray.

11. Tags/Keywords: Fork, Tray, DDS, Superstition, Magic

Red Social Cup

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1. Title: Red Social Cup

2. Informant info:

Chris Boone is an student at Dartmouth, part of the class of 2017. He is from Trumbull, Connecticut, and is studying government. He was a trip leader for some of the incoming freshmen, including me. He tends to eat at foco on most days.

3. Type of lore (Genre and Sub-genre): Material, Tools

4. Language: English

5. Country of Origin: Hanover, New Hampshire, United States

6. Social / Cultural Context:

Class of 1953 Commons is one of the dining facilities known at Dartmouth. Many refer to it as ‘Foco’ for short, a phrase adopted by all students. At this dining hall, you pay to enter and get an unlimited, all-you-can-eat meal. Often you can see sports teams and fraternity/sorority members sitting together, or floor mates and close friends sitting in groups and talking about their day. But sometimes, there people who go to Foco solo, although it is known for being a very social space on campus. Today, Foco has only one kind of cup, a clear plastic one in fact. However, in the past, many claim that Foco had a red plastic cup, a cup used to solve the problem of solo dining.

7. Associated File: N/A

8. Transcript:

“The red social cup was designed to be a means of eating with people even if you went to foco alone. The way it worked was that after you sat down at a table alone, you would grab one of the red cups instead of a clear cup, and sit at an empty table. Then, other people who went to Foco alone would see you sitting with the red cup, and would then join you.”

9. Informant’s comments:

“Grabbing a red social cup was a bold move…. and it was unsure if people actually did it or not. To be honest, I might’ve tried to do it if it still existed, sometimes you just need the friendliness. Always gotta have someone to sit with at Foco.”

10. Collector’s comments:

Since the use of red cups in Foco have been discontinued for some time now, there is no way of knowing how widely this practice was used, or if it was used at all. I believe it was one of those things where people may have tried it for fun or just to see if it would happen, but i doubt that it was taken very seriously.

11. Tags/Keywords: Red Social Cup, Foco, Items, DDS, Class of ’53 Commons