The first thing you learn after moving off-campus and grocery shopping for yourself is that food is way more expensive than you thought it was. The second thing is that you have no idea what kind of food you need. Nothing like staring into an empty pantry to make you realize that you have absolutely no idea how to feed yourself and be an adult. Once you’ve stocked up on the essentials and headed home, the awful truth hits you – you’re going to have to do this again. And again. And again, every time you run out of food. This leads to grocery shopping at some inopportune moments. Such as when you’re hungry.

The first stage of grocery shopping while hungry is denial. Denial can take many forms, but often appears in statements such as “I’m only going to get the essentials” and “I’m not going to buy three bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups just because they’re on sale.” A 20-something grocery shopper in denial is easy to spot. They can usually be seen circling the candy or ice cream isles and holding a grocery basket that’s obviously too small for their purposes. At this point, they think they can still control the situation. Poor fools.

The next stage is anger. Typically, anger is caused by situations created by the hungry shopper during the denial stage. Having a cart that’s too small for your intended purposes is one of them. Another is forgetting your list at home, which hampers your ability to keep up the appearance of intending to keep to the list. Angry shoppers can be found lurking in the paper goods aisle and glowering at people who clearly planned better than they did. This is a defense mechanism and shouldn’t be treated as a sign of impending attack.

Next in the stages of grocery shopping while hungry comes bargaining. Bargaining can be identified through statements such as “I’ll buy everything today and not go shopping for a little while” and “I can totally eat two loaves of bread before they go stale” and “I definitely have room in my freezer for two cartons of on-sale ice cream.” The bargaining stage is typically accompanied by going back for a bigger cart and making plans to exercise to offset all the eating you’re planning to do.

The fourth stage is depression. This is the last moment of self-awareness in the process, where the hungry shopper briefly realizes that they’ve lost control of the situation. This stage typically doesn’t last long, as it’s not great for the long-term psychological health of the shopper to realize that their stomach has total control over their mind.

The final stage of shopping while hungry is acceptance. Statements such as, “What the hell, you only live once” are pretty common here, as is cracking open one or more of your purchases before you’ve actually bought them. The cycle is over, for now. But likely as not, it’ll start all over again as soon as your supplies run out. Such is life.