This is the best thing I've eaten today. And I used to live off these, especially back when I was a single man. I can remember working the early shift (4-9 am) at UPS--every day I would get home and shower, then play video games until 11:00, at which time I would cook two of these in order to feed my ravenous appetite. Of course, this schedule only existed during the summer, since the fall and spring involved my horrible and somewhat failed attempt at undergraduate work.
Speaking of which, I was thinking as I sat here gorging myself on the crispiness of this meaty and cheesy delight (I actually ate Combination, but who fucking cares, right?)--thinking about shit I used to eat when I was younger, early twenties and shit. It reminded me of something that happened to me a long time ago.

Once upon a time, I was the President of a social fraternity, specifically Kappa Alpha Order (pledge Fall '94). We were one of the few fraternities with an actual house--most of the other ones just met in a fucking pasture or some other nonsense. The house itself is set up in a square shape, complete with a courtyard in the middle. The house contained several different areas: The chapter room had a pool table, we had a separate office area, another nicer area (where I first found out my girlfriend/wife was pregnant), six bedrooms, five bathrooms, and a full kitchen. Since this is an eating story, it is only natural to assume that the kitchen would be the place it would occur. Generally, though, everyone kept their food in their own rooms--anything left up front was fair game. Most people had a microwave, refrigerator, etc. in their rooms (by the way, it was always two guys to a room). Anyway, one bright, sunny morning, I got up -----okay, that's bullshit. What really happened was that I had been up all fucking night drinking (surprisingly), and about seven in the morning, I had an extreme case of the munchies.

Now, most people don't know this about me (though I would assume that some might guess), but I don't cook much. Call me old-fashioned or whatever, but I was raised in a household where the women did the cooking while the men did other "manly" shit. Anyway. I'm not trying to get into a sexist thing here, but I do not like to cook. Not that I can't or that I haven't--it's just a matter of following directions anyway, and any fucking knucklehead can do that. But I just don't like cooking. My wife could tell you that I could starve to death with a pantry full of food simply because I'm too damned lazy to put some chili in a fucking bowl and heat it up. I kid you not. As I've gotten older, I do cook myself breakfast every once in a while if my wife's not here, but only breakfast. If it's past noon, I am not standing in front of the stove. But back to the story.

It's seven in the morning, the sun is coming up, the fucking birds are chirping loud than a bitch, and I'm hungry as a motherfucker. And I want some fucking pancakes. And I did have some fucking Bisquick handy and a bottle of syrup. So it was about to be pancake time. But being without the necessary implements in my room, I was forced to move it up front to the main kitchen. Picture me half drunk with a fucking skillet going, mixing my batter and all of that other crap and I'm pouring my batter into the skillet and I'm making some beautiful, round pancakes. I'm flipping 'em like a pro. The problem was that I could only do about two at a time. Being that I was "hungry as a motherfucker" as previously noted, I felt that two just were not going to do the trick. So I put two on a paper plate, covered it with a paper towel, and placed it inside the microwave in order to keep them warm. I cook two more and put them on the plate as well. By this time, my batter was beginning to run out, so I began frying the last two, my stomach growling in anticipation. I was just so fucking hungry.

As I'm watching the bubbles rise and pop on my pancakes, I look over toward the microwave to check the time. I knew it was getting early, and I probably had class, but I never really went, so why I decided to check the time I'll never know. Anyway, I look at the time and it's suddenly difficult to make out. I do wear glasses, but none of the coke bottle variety. I can see close up without them. But the time on the microwave, well, it looked weird. I moved in a little closer and what did I see?

A fucking roach crawling inside the place where the digital readout is.

"Aww, fuck!!" I yelled, tearing open the door to the microwave and whisking the paper towel off the top. And my plate, with four fucking pancakes--the ones that I made because I was so fucking hungry--the shit I made even though I fucking hate to cook, what did I see on it? About 15 of those little sonofabitches crawling all over them, with their beady little eyes mocking me as they pranced around on my fluffy brown pancakes, their little roach mouths smiling as though they had just encountered the fucking breakfast buffet at Shoney's. By this time, I was fucking hungry and furious. I called those little bastards every name in the book as I grabbed my plate out of that den of disease, all the while the pesky critters were fucking with me, crawling on my hands and wrists, trying to trick me into surrendering my hard-earned breakfast. Fucking roaches creep me out--spiders, moths, flies, snakes, other miscellaneous vermin, they don't bother me--when I get a roach on me, though, you will see me jump around like a little bitch. It's not that I'm scared of them. They are filthy and gross. I detest them.

So I sling the paper plate onto the counter and all of the little bastards high-tail it to one corner or another. So I'm just sitting there, staring at that plate of light, fluffy pancakes, trying to decide what to do. As much as I hated the idea of eating food that had just been covered with roaches, at the same time I hated to throw away food that I had spent the morning cooking. I must have sat there for a good twenty minutes.

Then my stomach grumbled.