After class, I went to my favorite place to think (lol): The theater building's basement. It's pretty much just a long hallway lined with lockers on the left side and locked doors on the right. Everything in this basement appears to be locked up. There's a few benches and tables on the right side which are perfect what I'm doing now.
At the far end, there's two vending machines. One for snacks, the other for drinks. I go to fish out 2 dollars for the snack machine, only to discover that I'm a buck short. I take out my credit card and press it to the card reader. After a successful beep, I press "F, 2" on the keypad and watch my Big Texas Cinnamon Roll fall from its holder and drop below.
Money. Everything these days is so damn expensive. And I'm not talking about how the vending machines on campus sell snacks for prices I didn't even know were possible on a vending machine, I'm talking about real stuff. School stuff. Stuff I need to function as a normal person. Last night, I met my friend out on our apartment's balcony to look at the blue moon. I lugged my camera all the way out there only to discover the moon was almost entirely hidden behind the clouds. Our long conversation jumped from a handful of topics, from urban planning, to which European country is the best (GERMANY!), to which country has the best (or most affordable) healthcare.
I have Crohn's disease. It's the reason why 2021 sucked so much ass. Thankfully, the medicine I'm on is doing a pretty good job of making me feel great again. I take it once every two weeks, no problem, and then order more. They come in syringes so I have to keep them in the refrigerator. The problem is, this medicine is really expensive and difficult to get. Sometimes when I call to refill my prescription, something just has to go wrong and it turns a fairly straightforward process into a 3-way battle between my dad and I, the prescription company, and my doctor. And then sometimes in these cases the medicine arrives late, so I'm off it for a few days and I start feeling like shit again.
What was I supposed to be talking about? Money?
Aside from medicine being expensive and hard to get in the United States, there's something else that's just as vital. And that thing is...
Kellogg's Cracklin' Oat Bran cereal.
Wait what.
This cereal...oh my GOD it's amazing. I've grown up on this stuff, and still eat it all the time. It is the best cereal, nothing compares. It's the perfect combination of cinnamon and nutmeg in an oat bran mix with cereal pieces that don't really look like cereal pieces. It's like a rectangle with a hole in the center, and flat on one side and rounded on the other, just go get a box and try it for yourself. If you can find it.
Yeah, it's not the easiest thing to find in stores. And when you do find it, it's like 6 goddamn dollars for ONE box. Which, might I add, is smaller than a standard cereal box. But when you do find it... hoo boy. But this is one of my biggest issues as a broke college student. Why is food so expensive. I'm not going to one of those big fancy supermarkets where the food has all the buzzwords on the label to make soccer moms lose their shit. I'm going to Giant. The place is located directly across from campus. They know they have a ton of college students going there to buy stuff, yet their prices are out of this world expensive. Yes, I get it, there's reasons for why stuff is priced how it is, whatever. But 6 dollars for one small box of cereal is insane. Even if it's the best cereal on the planet.
So what is the point of this post? I need to get a job.
The hallway I'm sitting in right now:
