• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

As college students, we’ve hit an age where we can buy ice cream anytime we want. We’re allowed to subsist exclusively on fast food and a menagerie of gummy animals – nobody will stop us. This lifestyle is most second graders’ dream.

But now that we’re living it, it’s not as fun as it looks. How did we get here?

Your roommate has been wondering the same thing.

As you amble into your apartment, you notice him standing at the counter, surrounded by stacks of plastic sandwich bags. He seems to be working intently on a one-man assembly line that involves bread, deli meat, peanut butter, sliced cheese and a panoply of condiments.

Your roommate says it’s gotten to the point where he can’t stand to look a vending machine in its plate-glass face. Having suddenly lost the gluttonous streak that had defined so many years of his life, he doesn’t even know who he is anymore.

To restore his lust for snack food (and his sense of self), he’s decided to take drastic measures. While trying to recreate the situation when he first discovered his love for Cheetos, Doritos and all other members of the “-os” food group, he’s decided to take on the same balanced diet he’d suffered in elementary school, down to the lovingly prepared brown-bag lunches his mother used to make.

And he’s concocting a month’s worth of sandwiches all at the same time. Surprisingly enough, it’s almost a good idea – sandwiches, as long as they don’t include vegetables, freeze well for a few weeks.

“Here, I made one for you, too,” he says, holding out a full paper bag with your name scribbled on it. “It’s for tomorrow.”

Peering inside, you see three sandwiches – a peanut butter and two tuna salads – and a Fruit Roll-Up. Nothing else.

“I forgot what else goes in a lunch,” your roommate confesses. “And just one sandwich didn’t look like enough.”

He remembers the Fruit Roll-Up because he used to trade it for popularity. He advises you to share the one in your lunch bag with that guy you like, the one who’s in your Thursday discussion section. (The last time he tried this particular trick, the girl in question let him go all the way to first base. He’s hoping that now, a decade later, it’ll work at least as well.)

But what about the other elements? Your roommate has the entree angle covered, although only one sandwich is really necessary. If you get sick of sandwiches, you can just as easily substitute hardboiled eggs, tortilla wraps, yogurt, cottage cheese with fruit or any kind of leftovers.

Get your roommate to clear a few feet of counter space for you, and get out a cutting board. You’re going to be in charge of fruits and vegetables.

Wash some celery, cut it into sticks and pull out the veins. Put dollops of peanut butter into plastic bags – you can dip the sticks into it at lunchtime. Slice bell peppers into slabs and smear them with cream cheese (but make sure to eat them within 24 hours, before they get soggy). Bag individual servings of baby carrots and keep them in the refrigerator. Make a mental note to buy more apples and oranges.

The last thing that’s missing is a drink. You can complete the memory lane trip by going shopping for juice boxes, or maybe just grab a water bottle.

Probably within a few days your roommate’s taste for junk food will return, and he’ll start packing a five-dollar bill in his brown paper bag. But it’s fun while it lasts.

Do you open Capri Sun pouches by stabbing the bottoms with your straw? E-mail Raab at lraab@media.ucla.edu.