Tempus Fugit

It’s been nearly 72 hours since I began my hunger strike. The thing is, I’ll be damned if I can figure out what I’m protesting. As I woke up this Saturday morning, I just happened to think of food. “When was the last time that I ate?” I wondered to myself. Surely if not yesterday, the day before. Right?

Well… wrong.

A look at my credit card account revealed that the last time I had anything to eat was on Wednesday afternoon when I went to Burger King.

First, there’s something you should know about me: I think food is boring. Food gets in the way. Food costs money. Food takes time to prepare or procure. While I enjoy a nice meal when I’m hungry, I don’t sit around fantasizing about it. It’s nice when I need it, but before and after I need it, I could honestly care less. What’s really great is that there is a certain portion of my readers who are clenching their fists in rage, as they are reading this. “How can he talk that way about Food?!” they scream. They’re so angry, that they didn’t even notice the candy bars they squished when they clenched each of their fists. I’d like to take this moment to suggest that these people take a few deep breaths. Calm yourself down. And now, since deep breaths are such hard work, go ahead and reward yourself by hoovering the crumbs from your keyboard and licking the mashed chocolate from your chubby fingers.

Now, this nourishment apathy often leads me to go for longer-than-normal periods of time without food. I usually get by with 1 meal a day. Maybe two. Still, I usually manage to get that one meal in. I think that the missing piece of the puzzle here is my girlfriend, Sarah. When I don’t eat for a long time, there is a period during which I do not feel hungry, but I become very, very nasty. Oh heck, let’s be honest. I’m a complete dick during that pre-hunger period. As you can probably imagine, this attitude doesn’t go over well with Sarah, and thus I am forced to eat. But right now, Sarah is in Tampa for the semester on an internship. The Sarah factor is missing. I spend my time going to class, studying, working and reading. That’s about it. My human interactions are limited, so the nasty period before the hunger, which occurred yesterday, didn’t really affect anyone.

So now, I find myself in the somewhat bizarre position of being nearly three days into a hunger strike that I didn’t intend to start. As it turns out, hunger striking might just be my default mode of existence. People generally embark on hunger strikes for a cause. Prisoners do it to get attention. I think Jesus did it to piss off Satan. Protesters of everything from wars to questionable labor management practices have used hunger strikes to make a point.

Am I allowed to retroactively make my hunger strike for a cause? It seems a shame to waste it.

As for my current status: eh… I could eat. But I’d much rather sit here and try to think of a good cause for my recently realized hunger strike.

Update: Okay… there’s the hunger. Time to go eat. 80 hours, officially. And I’ve decided that this hunger strike was done in the name of this amazingly awesome piece of independent journalism. Read it. Wow.