Who moved my bread?

It's eight o'clock as I unlock the door to my apartment and stagger inside. After a long day of work, studying for the GRE, and preparing my Fulbright application, I'm starving. I haven't eaten since 1 pm. Too busy (and poor) to take an earlier dinner break, my thoughts now revolve around one single thing: a toasted cheese sandwich.

Cheese. Bread. That's all I want. That's actually all I have. In a fierce breakaway from the cereal addiction, I desire the only other food item I have in my fridge right now, and it's the only thing on my mind.

I walk to the fridge and open it to inspect its contents. I am surprised to see that it is overflowing with food items from Costco: a huge container of egg salad, 200 strawberries, 2 containers of pasta salad, and the largest packages of hamburger that I have ever seen. My roommate, the activities co-chair in her Asian ward, must have bought all this for an activity they will have in the (hopefully) near future. And it is all sitting on top of the small space in the fridge upon which my final two slices of bread used to reside.

Sighing, I bend down to search for my bread. I pull out the salad, heft the two huge rolls of ground beef (sick, I think to myself, as the blood runs along the inside of the clear plastic wrapping), and move the strawberries. No bread.

Oh no. Since moving to this apartment one week ago, I haven't been to the grocery store, and thus have only taken up one very small corner of the fridge. Milk, cheese, and bread. That's all I have. Thankfully a few days ago I moved my cheese to the "cheese drawer" and so it was spared the fridge invasion. However, my roommate, in making room for the huge packages of food, must have seen the two pieces of bread (end pieces, so worthless unless it's all you have) and decided it was time to throw them out.

Still hopeful, I check the top shelf. Three bowls of rice, olives, milk, and orange juice, but no bread. And with desperate hope that my bread somehow missed my first search, I check the bottom shelf one more time. Another round of the vegetable drawers (filled with carrots, even though my roommate doesn't like carrots...), the cheese drawer, and finally the freezer. No bread.

In desperation I start checking the cupboards and silverware drawers and finally, dejected, stand before the makeshift shelves of "pantry" food that belongs to my roommates. Maybe, just maybe, someone took the bread out of the fridge and put it on someone's shelf. My mouth watering and the hunger making me delirious, I finally give up and reach down to pull out my cereal box.

I look into the bowl as I pour my cereal in. On the bottom is painted the Chinese character for love. And I think to myself, good thing I love cereal...