We've all been there. You find yourself maybe 15 minutes into your lecture and out of nowhere hunger, your old revival, comes slowly creeping up from behind you. Hunger makes its way to you and quietly taps you on the shoulder and whispers softly, "Hey buddy. Remember me?"
At this point, the battle has begun. You are trapped in a 100 person lecture hall for another hour with your body's desire for food only growing stronger. Within the next hour, you are about to go on a journey. A journey with five stages as told by the wonderful, the beautiful, Leslie Knope:
1. Denial
You try your best to ignore that first little pang of hunger. You're not hungry. You most definitely had food at some point the past 24 hours. You're good. Actually you're not just good, you're great and absolutely not hungry.
2. Anger
Aight. Yep. Uh huh. You're hungry. There's no denying it. Forget hungry. You are straight up hangry. All sorts of emotions are flooding you. You're angry at yourself for not being responsible enough to feed yourself. You're angry at the guy snacking on Pop Tarts two rows down. You're even angry at the girl Pinteresting dinner ideas right next to you as if your biological needs are some kind of game.
3. Bargaining
Depending on the intensity of your hunger you could be willing to give up a lot of things: that last dollar to you have that is supposed to tide you over until your next paycheck, your kidney (you only need one right?), your first born...
4. Depression
Depression slowly starts to sink when you realize you just went through those first three stages in under ten minutes. As the time sluggishly ticks by and your professor continues to drone on about probably something rather important, your sadness/hunger becomes greater and greater.
5. Acceptance
As you look at the clock and see you only have 7.3891 minutes left until you are free to go track down a grand feast from the vending machine or the cafeteria you accept what has happened to you. You didn't eat enough (or at all) before class and you suffered the consequences. Maybe one day your stomach and overall digestive will forgive you. Better yet that day is only 7.3800 minutes away!
You and your biological need for organic substance will always need each other yet there will be a tug-of-war between you. So next time pack snack, wake up early and eat some breakfast for once. This whole experience could have been prevented by just a bit more self-awareness. But let's be honest. You'll probably go through this all over again next week because you are a semi-irresponsible college student and that's just what we do.
