At the cafeteria people choose from a wide variety of fare. But there’s no point to any of it, and no one realizes that soon they will be old and all the possibilities, which at the moment seem both infinite and inevitable, will disappear.

Jake: How you boys feeling?
Darren: Good, right, Abe, we’re feeling good?
Abe: Birds flying high, you know how I feel.
Jake: Jazz standard allusions, alright, I thought this was my table!
Darren: We accept all, right Abe?
Abe: Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.
Jake: Where did you get this guy!?
Darren: He came with the room.
Jake: Lucky man.

Meanwhile, at the girls table:
Tiffany: Hi hi, you girls mind if we join?
Susan: We’ve saved you seats.
Tiffany: Mille grazie!
Susan: Of course! It’s not like we know anyone.
Julia: Yes, Una grazie’s more than sufficient.
Janet: Do they still package them as singles?
Julia: Hello, I’m Julia, and this is Susan.
Susan: We’re roommates.
Janet: Hello, I’m Janet, I went to high school with Tiffany.
Susan: What town are you from? I don’t think Tiffany mentioned.
Janet: Pittsburgh.
Susan: Oh, very nice! That’s where we had our Pittsburgh field trip in fourth grade. I loved the incline, but I wish that man had not punched the stadium wall.
Janet: I’m not familiar with that event.
Susan: It was Pirates versus the Reds, May 27, 1987. I think the mall was metal. He had long stringy hair and a round face. A worn white T-shirt, blue jeans, a little on the heavy side. Seemed upset. The wall didn’t move.
Tiffany: Amazing memory!
Janet: Who won?
Susan: Reds 13 to 6. They won all three games at Three Rivers Stadium.
Julia: You didn’t tell me you were such a sports fan.
Susan: Oh, yes! Only baseball though. And softball. I played softball.

But conversations about who played what position in high school sports are too boring to include in a movie, so here we will mercifully break away to a scene of one of the student cafeteria workers cleaning off the salad bar while singing, It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight, risin’ up to the challenge of our rival. He’s wearing headphones. I guess this film is set in the mid to late 1990s, back when the US would always be a happy democracy and the jovial leader of the free world. Ah, those were the days! Where does forever go when it dies?