If you’ve been one of the 14 roommates I’ve had in the last 6 years, you might have noticed that I tend to eat a lot of peanut butter.
I’m sure you’ve all dipped a spoon into peanut butter at some point in your life, perhaps sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top when you are feeling extra decadent, but I take this to new levels.
While this has been a habit of mine for a while, it started in earnest my second year of JVC. My house was incredibly dysfunctional and community dinners were solemn, awkward affair. Nothing can kill your appetite like stone cold silence.* I take that back, undercooked split peas can be pretty unappetizing as well. We were not fantastic cooks, probably mainly due to the fact that we begrudged every moment in the kitchen and just wanted to get the heck out of there. It was supplemented by our low budget and lack of group cooking experience.
So I left the table hungry most nights. I have the metabolism of a twelve year old boy (don’t hate me) and am usually hungry again within an hour of dinner. Which is a problem in JVC, because $14 a week doesn’t go very far if you start buying midnight snacks. Thus, the peanut butter spoon. A nice little protein shot right before bed and I could fall asleep like a baby. If not, my stomach would gurgle until I relented and fed it. I blame that on my college roommate who once commented on how she could never fall asleep while hungry. I haven’t been able to either since. Hope that doesn’t happen to you.
There is something about trying to go to bed that makes me hungry. My theory is that lying down makes my stomach stretch out and feel empty. But no matter what, virtually every night I get hungry around bed time and end up satiating my appetite with a peanut butter spoon.
This has been to the dismay of at least two out of those 14 roommates who have noted that peanut butter is not easy to get off of silverware. Especially when you don’t have one of those new fangled “dishwashers” I keep hearing so much about.
I love my peanut butter spoons. They are filling, probably incredibly bad for me, and I think trigger my brain to fall asleep. The funny thing is I don’t really eat peanut butter in many other forms (although PB in saltine sandwiches is heaven sent). Without jelly, a peanut butter sandwich is far from wonderful. But even so, we can go through a jar of peanut butter embarassingly quick.
So here’s to peanut butter. Wonderful peanut butter and the many sleep-filled nights because of it.
*Note to anyone considering JVC: usually it’s awesome. Or hard, but awesome. Our house will go down in the records of “worst house ever,” being beaten out by a house where someone moved into the unfinished basement and stopped talking to everyone and one where half the house changed the locks on the other house. If you’re still scared, I met my husband in my fist community. And that didn’t suck.
