Sometimes as a college student, you just need to sit back, break through the barriers of denial and contemplate just how hilariously broke you are.
When it comes to me, however, it’s more a case of fucked up priorities than anything else. Nerdy entertainment before food. Always.
Eating healthy is relatively expensive, but eating crap? That’s cheap as hell. Ultimately you can beg your roommate for scraps, or you can buy like three packets of Ramen with the loose change you gather after turning the pockets of all your pants inside out. My general life philosophy is that for as long as I’m in my 20s and able to, an obnoxious iTunes splurge is totally worth a few days of laying waste to my immune system.
Via: CBS News
My November prospects look bleaker than usual, though. I lost control at the Oaks Mall while putting together my Halloween costume. That jeopardized my projected Wednesday Comics Fund for the following month. Do you know how fucking expensive it is to be a Marvel fan who’s too anal to put up with torrents?
And, as it turns out, November is a painfully crucial month comics-wise. We’re at the thick of one of those special plots that encompass several series, which means you’re obligated to branch off and catch up with comics you don’t actually care for so you’ll understand the whole deal. (Seriously, just don’t read comics ever. That’s the only sane life advice I can give you).
Plus, we’ve got “Mockingjay” coming out in the end of the month, and by that time I’ll have to have watched “Fury” and “The Book of Life” (several times). Something’s gotta give, and it is going to be food. Obviously.
Luckily, the parental units have requested my assistance as they move from Weston to Orlando. So that’s one whole all-expenses-paid week right there as I help them box things up. Before that, though, I decided to go super frugal for at least 7 days, and I chose Halloween week because I’d already bought my stuff and Oct. 31st is all about knocking on doors and begging for sugar anyways. I allowed myself $3 per day at most and no grocery store trip that week.
Via: Alive Campus
I started on Saturday, the 25th. Quiet weekend in eating whatever frozen food I had left. I ditched my Sunday Publix trip. All was well.
Monday, the 27th: Stab to the heart. I had completely neglected the fact that the Friends of the Library’s Fall Book Sale was that week. For those who don’t know: The sale happens once a semester, and it’s the largest of its kind in the state. Second-hand novels, textbooks, comics, manga, magazines, DVDs, videotapes, vinyl, posters, old Star Trek shit. Prices ranging from 25 cents to $4.00 on normal days! And most things for 10 fucking cents on the last day, Wednesday. But the thing is, you need to go every day anyway because they constantly put up new stuff. It’s glorious. People actually bring suitcases.
I didn’t, though! Spending too much money wasn’t an option this semester.
I did, however, bring all of my designated food money for the rest of the week, plus extra five dollars because that’s how ATMs work, and I can’t be held accountable for that, so we’re talking $20. Obviously, I spent all of that in comics, several really shitty mystery books, a Victorian era gothic novel about an incestuous monk or whatever, super extremely crucial literature like Robin Hood stories and “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” a book about the historical legitimacy of Arthurian mythology and a 1923 edition of Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle and Other Sketches.”
I mean, what the fuck else would I be able to buy with three dollars a day anyway? I’d just eat Ramen for lunch and dinner for five days straight.
By Wednesday, I was bored and hating myself for only having beef flavor Ramen in the pantry. So I started to do stuff like mixing in mayonnaise and mozzarella. I ran out of bread, so where else would I put the two leftover slices? The combo sickened me a bit, so at dinner time I tried it with butter. And that was good! I loved it, so on Thursday I went on full-obnoxious butter mode. (I’m talking about eating butter off a spoon here.)
Via: The Times
When it was around midnight, I wanted to die, something toxic happened in my stomach. I flashed back to the time I read an Italian folktale about a rude old dude whose punishment for doing whatever was to literally poop himself to death.
I woke up on Halloween scratching a couple of zits (one on my chin, one under my nose). I don’t usually get those, so of course, by lunch time I had already obsessively probed at them and turned them into volcanoes.
I don’t know if this is psychological because everything in my field of vision was tinted in 50 shades of dull Ramen-yellow, but I thought my nails looked brittle. It didn’t really matter because I soon coated them with red nail polish and gold glitter to match my makeshift girl’s version of an Iron Man costume. (I never did decide if I was Iron Girl or Iron Woman or Iron Maiden or Iron Mistress, but whatever.) I went trick-or-treating for charity with friends (proceeds went to the St. Francis House for the homeless – look at me being a good person. You’re welcome, Universe).
Then, I did that lame thing where I ditched any after-parties because all I wanted was to watch “A Nightmare Before Christmas” –- is that more of a Halloween or a Christmas movie? Whatever – and I ended the night with my roommates singing to that mournful Amy Lee remix of “Sally’s Song.”
When it was like 4 o’clock on Saturday morning, I gave up and went to the kitchen to get a packet of Ramen. I hadn’t had any real meals on Friday; I’d just stolen four of my brother’s protein bars. I ate the noodles raw and uncooked though, because I distinctly remember being too lazy to turn the kitchen lights on and do complicated microwave shit, and God forbid having to do dishes.
Via: Urban Outfitters
But, in retrospect I also think it was because the smell of cooked Ramen would have sent me into some kind of evil trance at that point.
Maybe this story is all wildly exaggerated, but I promise you that this is what it feels like on a Sunday at 2 o’clock in the morning while you’re reevaluating your entire existence. I think there’s a unique brand of subconscious self-loathing that goes into the decision of forfeiting food in order to buy written stuff about the lives of fictional people.
And, there’s a sense of numbed despair that comes with the fact that I know I would do it again. It’s like I’m screaming at myself from a distant dream, but out here there’s a brand new Iron Man series that’s coming out on November 12th and good God, it looks absolutely terrible, but I need to buy it and somehow that speaks louder than my common sense.
So, after having Ramen for a week straight, I’ve learned a few things. I’ve determined that I’m a human disaster, not fit to live without adult supervision. I’ve also learned (the hard way) that too much butter makes you sick; that I need to see a psychologist about my obsessions; you shouldn’t scratch your zits; you should take an empty suitcase to the Friends of the Library book sale.
Via: Kifi
Finally, don’t try this diet unless your parents are feeding you or you’re otherwise able to pay for relatively expensive varied meals the following week. This is a good opportunity for soul-searching fueled by self-loathing, if that’s your thing.
I absolutely refuse to take any responsibility for the bodily reactions of anyone who decides to try this because if this article isn’t warning enough, the feeling you have after your first bout with Ramen should deter you from trying it for a full week.
Feature photo courtesy of: Global Post
