Food tastes best when it’s earned: This is false. There
is, in fact, such thing as a free lunch. And breakfast. And dinner too. Neva Sheaffer
lives by this mantra. “Do you know what a freegan is?” She once asked me in a
string of twelve text messages (we’ve built up a pen-palesque relationship through texting). I had no idea.
According to freegan.info, “Freegans are people who employ alternative
strategies for living based on limited participation in the conventional
economy and minimal consumptional economy and minimal consumption of resources.”
In other words, these individuals love free food.
“When does this
end?” I groaned at Neva. We’d been standing for an hour and a half at the back
of a room filled with shifting bodies, all sneaking looks toward the buffet at
the back. The African Student’s Association romped across the stage for mostly
unamused eyes. Pain rung my ankles and my calves became stiff clumps of dirt.
Neva hogged a concrete column, shooting me a smile as she leaned, relieving the
weight on her feet.
“Soon, I hope.”
She grabbed my arm and nudged me closer to the food line. We laughed silently
through our teeth, too scared to look around for dirty looks from other
audience members.
Finally, the show
ended and the master of ceremonies announced the food protocol. “Everyone who
had to stand in the back through the show, we appreciate your commitment. You’ll
get to eat first.” Our faces contorted, giving away our absurd level of
excitement. We walked down past gleaming buffet trays filled with homemade
dishes from all over Africa. “Would you like some of this?” Of course, I’d love
to try some! “Any of that?” Yes, heap that on my plate. At the end of the line,
my Dixie plate looked like an over-worked mule struggling to keep its spine
from snapping.
We vacuumed down fork-fulls
of plantains, spiced beef stew, and red rice, savoring the food as much as we
did its freeness. No one bothered to even ask about the dish’s names. We simply
ate, high with the feeling that, in some way, we’d beaten the system. After
all, two hours in the standing room is a small price to pay for free food.
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