Afternoon Craving

It’s about that time in the afternoon when I get restlessly hungry. I can’t focus well on whatever spreadsheet or presentation is currently at hand, and I keep watching the clock to see if I can go home to dinner yet. My stomach growls and I wander into the office kitchen to see if anything has magically added to the supply of Wheat Thins, tootsie rolls, or pretzel stubs. Or whatever they’re called. No, nothing new! I’ve already had a handful and a half of Wheat Thins, and the rest doesn’t appeal to me. So far today, I’ve had some grapes, watermelon, and salad… How herbivore of me. Not that I want meat… No, I want carbs, glorious carbs! And not in the form of some dried-out pretzel/cheese ball variety! I want mac and cheese or a Cup of Noodles, carryovers from my hot pot-inspired diet of college days. Comfort to me is a Styrofoam cup of tangled-up yellow noodles (chicken flavored, please), with the gratuitous sprinkling of mixed, dehydrated veggies. I’m all about a balanced diet.

But I know that the drugstore down the way doesn’t even carry Cup of Noodles. It was a sad day when I made that realization on just such an afternoon. I'd have to get Easy Mac, another college revelation that was advertised toward 8-year-olds, but is actually most applicable for students, especially in its new handy packs. If I had had this in college, the number orange-encrusted dollar store bowls on top of my microwave would have greatly decreased.

Did I mention that my mom is the Queen of Making Things from Scratch? We absolutely never had mac and cheese out of a box, and I didn’t even know what Bisquick was until college. Forget about bottled pasta sauce, without which my baked ziti habit could not be fulfilled. I’ve quietly slunk over to the dark side. She would be mortified at my now-dependence on pre-packaged pasta-type products, but I can still make a mean pumpkin cheesecake from scratch. Doesn’t that count for something?

Mm, cheesecake.

That’s it. I have to go get a snack.

Sorry, Mom.