My girlfriend and I moved this past week and due to landlord chicanery (long story) we’ve been left without a refrigerator.  Although I’m as partial as anyone to the joys of dining out, this recent economic downturn as well as my rapidly expanding waistline has forced me to pack lunch and cook dinner at home.  As a veteran of many professional kitchens, you can only imagine my consternation at being forced once again to slave away over the stove (and this time at no pay!).

Cook at home again?? Miyagi pimp slap youuuu!

Cook at home again?? Miyagi pimp slap taste out youuuu mouf'!

Still, eating breakfast lunch and dinner out everyday for a week has increased my food bills exponentially.  To cut back this astronomical outlay on food, I’ve fallen back on my favorite skill set: scamming.  The vast majority of my evil deeds are perpetrated at the hotel cafeteria right next to my building.  As they weigh salad by the ounce ($.30 per) but sandwiches by the pound ($7.00 per), I will carefully arrange a small layer of lettuce on the top and bottom, load up the middle of the container with expensive deli meats such as pastrami and roast beef and then drape them again with a light layer of greens to mask my meaty prize. 

 

Not content to let this cost-cutting trend go unrealized, I’ve now set my eyes on filling opaque 12 oz. containers with tuna salad (another high ticket item) and paying the $2.95 flat fee, claiming it is soup.  I know that the cafeteria’s regular prices relative to food cost are wildly inflated, so I don’t feel so bad in paying what I feel is a fair price for these items.  That is to say, the least amount of money possible.

Cost-benefit analysis at its finest, you might say.