Clashing wallets and eating habits
I Make This Look Good
Chhun Sun
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A FRIEND PLAYED A cruel joked on me about a month ago.
We were at the Fresno State bowling alley — where if the game were based on style points (because I hopped like a ballet dancer whenever I approached the lane) — I’d have been the equivalent Michael Jordan of bowling. It was two of my friends and me. We were waiting for three friends. Then they finally came, but not before making the sort of entrance reserved for movies — slow and cool, with one of them talking on his cellphone. We greeted each other with handshakes and hugs and then one said the unthinkable, something that almost caused me to vomit on my bowling shoes.
“Let’s go eat somewhere,” he said.
“What! Why you guys always wanna go eat out somewhere,” I said, standing up and waving my index finger in front of his face like I’m the teacher and he’s the student. “Don’t you know I’m broke? You need to learn to eat food at home. Didn’t your mama teach you better?”
He started laughing.
I started clenching my fists and blood began rising into my eyes. Then I cooled down, knowing that my friend is too big for me to fight.
“I knew you were going to do that,” he said, referring to one of my friends who told him earlier that I don’t like the fact that we’re always dining out.
It’s true.
My group of friends always eat out like it’s a hobby. But people, it’s hurting my wallet, like it’s taken some sort of diet pill and now is about as thin as those new RAZR cell phones.
Before moving to Fresno, I lived with my parents for 21 years. Yes, folks, I know. That’s pathetic. But the one thing I will always remember from my mother is to look for other alternatives than dining at expensive restaurants. Like eating at home. But oh, how I’ve disappointed her. If I wanted to, I could cook. But I refuse to. Instead I eat out at least three to five times a week.
That eating habit is not a good idea for two reasons.
1. I’m not rich. I struggle to make rent like most of you college students. But like some of you, I like the nice things in life. If I could just keep my funds restricted to textbooks, rent, car payments and supermarket foods, I wouldn’t have to resort to asking my teenage nephew to spot me whenever we go to Taco Bell.
2. I don’t eat much at all, although I have gained about six pounds since New Year’s. That is, however, mostly owed to lifting weights like a savage human being. Once I go inside a restaurant, I smell the food and I pretty much am satisfied.
Which throws a wrench into my eating situation.
Like many of you, I don’t like to pass up a chance to have good food and good friends. But I need to find a solution, some way to allow me to enjoy these two entities without reaching deep into my wallet. That means I have to take a break and figure this out.
In the meantime, I just got called to go grab lunch with a certain sports editor at The Collegian. Be back in a flash. Sorry.
Wow. That lunch was good. The enchilada with the bean and rice really make me want to go to sleep. But I’m going to do so.
OK, I don’t have a solution.
Wait. Hold on again.
This time another friend invited me to go to dinner. Be right back.
OK, people, still no solution. All I know is that in the duration of writing this column and taking breaks in between I’ve spent about $30 on food.
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