It's a weeknight and you've just finished hour upon hour of studying, doing homework, and finishing that group project that you ended up doing sixty percent of. Now what do you do? Your stomach rumbles because you've already skipped dinner and probably slept through breakfast before rushing to your nine thirty morning class. All hope seems lost!

But it is not. It is only midnight- quite an early hour for a creature of your habit. Most shops and boutiques and restaurants have closed by now, however the dregs of fast cuisine remain valuable options. Do you choose the nearby Taco Bell or Cookout perhaps? Are you hankering for a large sweet tea and a good old fashioned grease-ball of a burger? Or perhaps you lean more towards a juicy soft shell taco and a veritable box of hot sauce.

Regardless of which you choose- one or the other or perhaps neither, a choice must be made and must be made well. Do not tarry too long for you will run out of even these options and remain stoic yet starving until morning's first light. Beware the long lines that await as that vaunted 3am or 4am cutout approaches- it would be near suicidal for your stomach if you were caught on the outside looking in, so close to satiating your hunger yet so far.

No, a great late night food run takes both precision and practice. First of all, you must strike fast and hard. Take only the bare essentials- a sober driver, a sober-er navigator, and the backseat shot-caller quarterback (may or may not be sober). Upon arrival at your destination, be sure to inspect both the drive-thru and indoor lines. Whichever is shorter is typically your best option, however on occasion you must also inspect those within the line. A minivan full of hungry Peewee league baseball brats? A large group of ravenous freshmen, away from home and mom's cooking for the first time?

Your next task is to come up with a gameplan (if you haven't already) while in line. Say you've decided to venture forth into the drive-thru line instead of embarking upon the arduous fourteen foot journey through the cold to the inside of Cookout/Taco Bell/Insert Option Here. It is now the backseat shot-caller's job to coordinate with his or her other two companions, as well as the ravenous and possibly intoxicated squad left behind in order to establish a baseline order. Once this monumental task has been completed, the remaining stretch is the easiest by far.

You will inevitably make your way through the line and to the window. Now comes the moment of truth- do you have enough pocket change between the three of you? If so, grab your hard earned meal and skedaddle on out of there. Resist the urge to speed on the way back- it's not only bad form and dangerous, but getting pulled over and given a citation all because you couldn't wait to make it back and eat is entirely not worth it. Watch that guy in the back seat too because if you hand him the food it'll disappear into the void he calls a stomach by the time you arrive back on campus or home.

If you're hungry by now and it's after ten in the evening but before four in the morning, you've just entered the hours of prime food retrieval. Gather your closest companions and venture forth on a journey to equal any other. If you're a fellow ravenous university student, then this applies to you more than anyone else. Enjoy yourselves, enjoy some food, and enjoy quality company all before the sun rises and the despair of a morning exam sets in anew.