LOWELL DINING HALL — Alex C. Smith '19 found himself at a loss on Wednesday after using up the only two sports facts he knows roughly 30 seconds into dinnertime small talk.

The painful conversation began when Lisa H. Jenkins '18 asked Smith, her former section acquaintance, whether he had caught the big game as the two waited for their grill orders.

“How ’bout those Packers, am I right?” he replied, relying on fact number one. “17-9 against the Seahawks is no easy feat.”

CAMBRIDGE, MA—As the university confronts annoyed students, dining hall closures, and starving mice, Local 26 and the Harvard Management Corporation both played “scissors” in round 9,475 of the rock-paper-scissors-format negotiations.