Pity the Food

I sometimes find it hard to draw the line between living like a college student and living below the poverty line. Maybe it's just misguided self-discipline that leads me to into the latter life style thought. It may not be surprising to the reader that I spent all of the money in my Danish bank account during my week in Paris. I thought I was going to come out of there with at least forty bucks left to my name. I had the fortune of finding out how wrong I was after waiting in line at the supermarket for half an hour just to see the machine reject my card as the last of my wish list drifted down the conveyor belt. "There's an ATM over there." The cashier pointed across the mall. It was nice of him to pretend that I wasn't just leaving the grocery store because I couldn't pay up.

This was on March 21st, and I get my monthly allowance on the first of every month. So that gave me ten days to survive on nothing but the nonperishable food I left in my drawer and whatever money I took out of my savings. Naturally, I tried to go without spending any money. Those savings are for travelling! I'll admit it, I  ended up squandering perhaps eighty dollars from the American savings account, but less than half of it was on food. What can I say? I'm easily roped into drinking. Usually by the second "C'mon!" I'm out the door at an ATM.

As I was saying, my life style did not reflect the money I just said I spent. I allowed myself two bags of potatoes, carrots, onions, oats, and milk. After the oats and milk were gone, I developed a life style similar to that of an Irish serf who inexplicably attended university. Two meals a day consisted of potatoes, fried or baked, depending on my mood. There was some cheese in my fridge that was good for adding some flavor to a couple of meals and may have given me a healthy day's worth of protein spread over the course of two weeks.

A bag of rice I had left in the drawer helped satiate me a few times. By the end of my fast I got creative and took to frying a batter I developed. Flour, water, oil, salt, sugar, burnt on the outside, raw on the inside. They tasted a lot like scones actually. Maybe they didn't, maybe I was starving.