Special to The Leader
PHYLLIS T. CUPP
Lampoonist
In the year 2015, technology allows us to find hook ups at the drop of a hat. There’s HER for lesbians; there’s Grindr for gay men; there’s Tinder for us all. But what if all we really want is to get hooked up with food?
Administrators at Fredonia, one lonely night after clubbing at Sunny’s, said to each other, “Hey man, if we can get people to come to Grissom through Yik Yak, do you think there’s some way we could get people to come to Tim Hortons, too?”
Thus began Fredonia’s relationship with Tapingo, the new app dedicated to keep students coming back for more.
“Sometimes, people get the wrong idea about what our app is designed for,” one of the Tapingo representatives said. “We’re not here to satisfy anything but your hunger.”
But some people still don’t seem to understand. For starters, the app tells you how long it’ll take you to get your food — in a similar vein to how Grindr tells you how long it would take to get to the closest willing and able booty call.
The app also allows you to choose what kind of food you want, but unlike Tinder, all options remain available: not just the options that are interested in you, too.
“I actually met the love of my life on Tapingo,” freshman philosophy major Hugh Jeego said. “The new steak fajita wrap at Tim Hortons really changed my life.”
Tapingo is gaining a lot of reputation at Fredonia, but some workers aren’t pleased with the results so far.
“I hate it,” an employee of Starbucks said. The employee wishes to remain anonymous. “People keep coming up to me and asking, ‘Come here often?’ Like yeah, I do come here often — I work here.”
The employee also discussed how difficult it is to prepare meals for the inhouse customers and the virtual customers at the same time.
“I feel like I’m cheating on the customers who have been waiting on line for 25 minutes to get their iced caramel macchiatos,” she said. “How am I supposed to tell them that my online customers are just as important?”
The future of Tapingo is not set in stone — there are many who say they’ve been changed for good, and
there are others who claim that it may ruin the sanctity of food for all of Fredonia.