Ode to the Ramen Noodle
Today’s Cheapskate Evangelist is brought to you by the Generation Y.
One of the greatest tragedies of modern American life is that “living like a college student” doesn’t mean what it used to mean.
Oh, how I pity the twentysomethings! Those fragile, delicate youngsters who are poised on the Cliff of Becoming, whose smooth, unlined brains haven’t yet settled on the career that will ultimately disappoint them, who actually look forward to being funemployed! Those Kayleighs and Tylers who live in such comfort with their parents, who will never stay up late debating the merits of Top Ramen over Maruchan, who will never scrape around under parking meters after the snow melts, hoping to find enough change to buy those peanut butter crackers in the school vending machine, the ones that tempt and taunt with their alluring orange glow. And why should they? Their moms will give them money if they just ask! Because after all, it’s hard to be a college student these days.
Ah, the times they are a-changin’. Come gather ’round, children, come gather ’round and old Mrs. Garrett will teach you a valuable lesson. (“Who?” you say. Sigh. This lady.)
Picture this: Cleveland, 1997. It was a world that had never heard of Monica Lewinsky, and the Great Recession was just a twinkle in Alan Greenspan’s eye. A 98-lb sophomore at Cleveland State University digs through the garbage can at the neighborhood grocery store where she works. A bruised apple? Looks good. She puts it in her bag. A hunk of moldy cheese? It’s soon wrapped up in cellophane. Ditto the package of week-old bagels. They may be rock hard, but they can be dipped in a bowl of hot tea to form a kind of nutritious — and stimulating — sponge. She hauls the bag of booty out to the bus stop, where she waits for twenty minutes. The bus is late. One of the store managers pulls up, offers her a ride. She shakes her head. “At least take this can of spaghettios. It’s dented, I can’t sell it.” Our sophomore takes it, eagerly. Botulism be damned! The bus comes, and she clambers up the stairs, balances the bag on her lap. She gets off the bus, waits 30 minutes for another bus. Gets off that bus, walks half a mile to her one-room apartment (for which she pays $300 a month in cash), puts her garbage food away, gathers up her linguistics textbooks, and heads back to the bus stop because it’s time to go to her second job.
I’m so sorry that you’ll never have this character-building experience. I mean that, from the bottom of my cheapskate little heart.
The Creative Workforce Fellowship is a program of the Community Partnership for the Arts and Culture, made possible by the generous support of Cuyahoga County citizens through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. 
1) I like this new one, a lot.
2) Did you know that boxed mac&cheese, the kind you had to add water to when you didn’t have any milk and used to be 79 cents, is now 1.15? WTF.
1Fun fact: my cupboard is stocked with “pity mac & cheese” that was dumped on us by a well-meaning relative last fall as she was cleaning out her pantry. There are some “pity lima beans” in there, too.
You should go to Big Lots. I just bought some Annie’s Organic Mac & Cheese at Big Lots for 80 cents a box.
2I still eat ramen noodles and totally remember selling off chunks of my personal library to the bookstore down the street from me for grocery money and taking home leftovers from the food pantry I volunteered at.
Me and my college roommate used to dumpster dive at the Woodmere Trader Joe’s back in the Kent State days and come home with a trunk full of bananas, dumpstered organic bread, and all sorts of other goodness that held us over for weeks.
The thing about Kent was that a lot of the “poor college kids” I knew had pretty affluent parents in places like Hudson and would sort through their grocery bags at the pantry pulling out everything that wasn’t vegan or organic enough.
Not that I have any kind of socioeconomic resentment or anything…!
3My husband eats a packet of ramen noodles and an apple every day for lunch. I think his total lunch costs come out to less than $3 PER MONTH.
Dorothy Fuldheim once said that everyone should grow up poor. That it makes you more empathetic towards the hardships of others. Failing that, I think everyone who does not grow up poor should at least voluntarily go through the experience of living on next-to-nothing (and I’m not talking about that ersatz “living on nothing,” i.e., putting everything on your credit card and never paying it off). It makes you resourceful.
Ah, but the Cheapskate Evangelist promised NOT to hit anyone over the head with her Cudgel of Virtue!
4When did Ramen get so expensive? I recall when I was in college they were eight or ten for a dollar. Now they’re four for a dollar. Inflation hasn’t been anywhere near that point over that period of time.
5Fun fact: My sister and I use to buy ramen noodles at the corner store instead of candy when we were jonesing for comfort food.
But Chris is right! It’s 4 for a dollar now, which is redonkalous. Also, tell Jim I’m eating some right now for lunch, cause of him.
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