Hunger

Yes­ter­day I slept late. Late even for me. So I ate a late, light break­fast and made it through most of the after­noon with­out think­ing about food. By sup­per­time I was hun­gry. I could feel the empti­ness of my stom­ach. I was reminded of the first time in my life that I felt hunger.

I was 21 years old.

I had stayed at Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity in Bloom­ing­ton for the sum­mer to take a cou­ple of classes. I believe the dorms were all closed for the sum­mer so I sub­let a trailer and spent what amounted to a mostly mis­er­able sum­mer. I took a cou­ple of classes, but I did not get a job so I was depen­dent on money from home.

I should point out that the U.S. Post Office rou­tinely scanned the mail from my par­ents to me. If the scan revealed a check to be in the enve­lope, then the let­ter was shelved for a few days before deliv­ery. When no check was present, the let­ter arrived in my mail box the day after it was mailed. I know this makes me sound like a con­spir­acy nut (which I’m not despite my belief that Oswald did not act alone) and a bit para­noid (but when every­one is out to get you, you won’t care what you sound like either).

Any­ways, checks always seemed to take awhile. Added to that was the prob­lem that I spent my money poorly. I blew it on, gulp, comic books and Coca-​Cola. There, I’ve admit­ted it. Sad but true. I have boxes of comic books in the garage to prove it. Don’t worry, I already gave the few that had any value to my son.

Any­ways, I was dimly aware that I man­aged my money poorly, so I tried to delay ask­ing for money as long as pos­si­ble. At one point that sum­mer, I went though my money quicker than usual and so I delayed the call home longer than usual. And just to keep the roll going the Post Office shelved the let­ter longer than usual.

I ran out of food.

If you’ve read this far, it is prob­a­bly not a sur­prise to you that I grew up in a rea­son­ably well to do house­hold and that my exis­tence had been some­what pam­pered (in spite of the part time job through­out high school) up to that point. As a result, I had no clue that I could have found some one will­ing to feed me (at least, I assume that is true).

The only edi­ble thing left in the trailer was Cool Whip. I ate that.

I was begin­ning to feel a bit weak and I dreamed of stacks of pan­cakes, of which I am not all that fond.

And I thought about how I had never expe­ri­enced hunger before. Sure, I had used the word, but only in the sense that it seemed every­one used the word: it’s been three or four hours since I ate so it is time to eat so I am hun­gry. That was all the word meant to me, that it was time to eat.

After a few days, the check arrived and I still had the strength to buy gro­ceries. For some rea­son, the urge to eat pan­cakes had passed, so I spared myself that.

And despite yes­ter­day, I have never felt true hunger since.

Knock on wood. (I always hit my knuck­les on my head with that phrase since one can never be sure of the com­po­si­tion of objects that once upon a time were reli­ably wooden. I do not doubt the wood­en­ness of my head).

Tagged as: Hunger, Indiana University, Post Office