Non-Dorm Food

I almost skipped lunch today. And my stomach wasn't happy. My usual Thursday allotment of time between my two classes was shortened, as I had to venture to Vancouver, WA today. When I returned, I spent the remainder of my break studying and getting only 1/4 of one assignment finished...which is way less than I intended to complete. Thus, I was unable to eat until after my second class...which begins at 2:30. After class, my stomach was yelling at me to eat something and the rest of my tired body agreed, so I went to the nearest food...the cafeteria. I already knew this was a bad idea because a) it was in between meal times, so food was scarce, b) I have to walk past giant mint leaves to get into the cafeteria and the smell of mint makes me gag, c) the food there is really, really expensive...especially the to-go food that they sell between meal times, and d) to-go food is never all that good. Yet, knowing all of that, I still went because I have very little non-breakfast food items and because I really wanted something hot and was hoping there would be hot food (it's literally been several days since I had food that wasn't pre-packaged).

I was wrong to hope such vile hopes. The cafeteria had virtually no food. So, I bought the only things that looked good: an egg salad sandwich and a pear. This totaled to $6.25 (remember, Oregon doesn't have sales tax, then look at that number again. $6.25 for hard broiled egg and a couple sliced of lettuce on bread, and a pear). Still, knowing the price, I bought it, and walked the long walk back to my dorm. Too hungry to handle the stairs, I took the elevator up all 8 floors of my dorm, the entire time thinking about the money I had just wasted.

I decided to save half my sandwich for dinner because it was between meal times and why not split up the food...make all $5.25 of sandwich worth every bit. It was a tasty sandwich, don't get me wrong. And the eggs are only cage free eggs. And the bread contained no high fructose corn syrup. But still, it was expensive.

Worse than the sandwich, though, was the pear. For the same amount of money that I could probably buy several pears at the local grocery store, I bought one, single, crunchy pear. That's right, crunchy. I know what you're thinking, and that's what I was thinking on my first bite as well, Pears are supposed to be soft, not crunchy! I wasted a whole dollar that could have been used elsewhere on a single unripe pear.

This is why I'm experimenting with making my own food. Because at least when it's a waste of money and a waste of food, it's my fault.

Dorm Food

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