Appreciate college cafeteria food

Over the past week my facebook and twitter pages have been filled with information about people moving back into their dorms and reuniting with their college friends. It's made me feel very nostalgic about things that I never realized I should have appreciated. One of those things is the Commons, which is the name of the cafeteria at Stetson. While I attended Stetson, I, along with all of my friends, consistently complained about the lack of quality of the Commons' food. Everything always seemed a little off - the meat was possibly imitation, the sides were super saturated with salt, and even the salad bar seemed a little less healthy than a salad you could make at home.

However now, as I sit in my apartment in DC, with hardly any food in the fridge, a rumbling stomach, and cash that already belongs to next months bills, I realize that I would absolutely love a cafeteria. I didn't even have a meal plan for two years that I was in school - but of course someone else did. Someone whose mother insisted that they keep their 17 meals a week plus extra declining balance money just in case they really needed to eat 300 lbs. of food each day. I loved these people! They were always more than happy to make use of the money their parents were spending on the mediocre food we were offered. If I was ever hungry at any time in the day, there was always someone I could call, ask if they wanted to go eat and then bum a meal off of them. No money required...well except for that $2,100 their parents paid along with their kid's tuition. How nice! And I never took the time to appreciate what a wonderful thing this was..."free" food!

Once you no longer have the option of the university cafeteria, you actually have to think about what you'll want to eat for the next week, plan out some meals, travel to the grocery store, walk around for 30-45 minutes deciding if you want junk food or real food, determine whether or not you'll actually eat the healthy items you decide to purchase, theeennn you have to pull together some money in order to actually bring all that food home with you. Now I know that this is all very simple stuff. People grocery shop everyday. However, when you're broke you don't want to spend money on food - something that you got for "free" for 4 years in college.

Another one of life's simple circumstances that is surprisingly annoying...there's so much I've learned since graduation. =)