Thou shalt not eat (on campus)

Mr Quit could be seen eating his packed lunch in Vanbrugh Paradise

If you are on campus Monday to Friday during term time and you buy that little combination every day you will end up spending £517.50 in a year. This is assuming you never even go for a hot meal. Nor chocolate fudge cake with a cup of tea. I don’t spend that much on campus food – at least I don’t think that I do – but I’m sure I eat there far more than my bank balance would appreciate.

For these reasons, I was all too willing to step into the shoes of Miss Quit and tell you how it went stopping buying any food from the university campus. You might think it doesn’t sound difficult. You would be right; it probably wasn’t as difficult as giving up a mobile phone. But how many times have you not had time to make any lunch and just thought you would grab something on campus?

My quit started smoothly. I made myself a packed lunch on Sunday night, and didn’t feel particularly put out by that. It didn’t interrupt my evening and it didn’t even create a great deal more washing up. I didn’t even care about carrying a few bits extra to campus – even the most lavish lunches I’m sure don’t even compare to carrying a couple of text books.

When lunchtime came I had worked up quite an appetite. I was looking forward to the food I had lovingly prepared. I was particularly appreciative that I could avoid the food queues, sit in the sun and really feel like I was making the most of my time. Lunch was fine. The bread had gone a little bit soggy, but everything else stayed as expected.

I thought I already had a conclusion to my quit – I would have preferred a baguette, but for the money saved it was worth bringing my own food on. Maybe tomorrow I will try the university’s tip of using tons of mayonnaise – there may after all be reason behind it: soaking up any moisture to stop the bread going soggy.

I had no problems on Tuesday. I had the afternoon off where I planned to head into York to buy a pair of flip flops. I popped home and prepared a fantastic salad for lunch including all the trimmings – beetroot, croutons, crispy onion, coleslaw… That afternoon turned out to be the most detrimental time to my quit.

Tired out from walking around town in my new flip flops all afternoon all I wanted to do was relax Tuesday evening. The quit was so easy so far that I thought I might as well leave making lunch until Wednesday morning.

Wednesday morning came, I woke up and I panicked. I had slept through my alarm. It was too late. All I had time to do was pull some clothes on, brush my teeth and slip my new flip flops on. Then I had to practically run to campus.

By the time I got to my lecture my feet hurt and my stomach was rumbling from a lack of breakfast.

I don’t know if it was just the ones that I got – but these flip flops really hurt after wearing them for a long time! My toes had been cosily tucked away in socks all year and then – bam! – no socks and the straps digging into my poor feet.

I managed to hobble around campus and hold my hunger out until lunchtime. My walking was getting slower and slower all day. And then the inevitable offer of lunch in Vanbrugh came. I felt like accidentally forgetting the quit, resting my feet and getting a cooked meal. It would certainly have been worth the cost of the food to me at that point, if only for the time my feet would get free of pain.

Alas, no – for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to head to Browns for the benefit of The Yorker. I thought that way I could get a good tasting lunch without technically breaking the rules.

I left my friends and started to make the trek from Vanbrugh to Heslington. I had half an hour before my seminar. I could do the walk to and from Browns in 10-15 minutes maximum. It took me twenty just to get there. Even the slowest of the automatic doors around campus opened with more than enough time. I only realised how long it had taken me when I got to Heslington – so by the time I got there I didn’t have time to buy a sandwich. I headed straight back to try and be on time for the seminar, but of course I was late. And still hungry.

I offered to do this week’s quit because I thought it would be easy. I was interested to see how dependent I was on campus food, food that I’m not even particularly fond of.

My answer? Very.

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