Crepe Truck

Last night I had the 6-8pm tent shift, exactly during dinner time, so naturally I was hungry. And then to make it worse, I was huddled up in my sleeping bag, all alone in the tent, semi-doing homework on my laptop, when I checked my facebook and saw my newsfeed dominated by photos from foodporndaily.com. Don’t go there. It will give you unrealistic expectations for the food in your life, and make you dissatisfied with the abundance I know you have already. Well that’s what it does to me, anyway. “Food porn” is an accurate, albeit crude, term.

Anyway so there I was, fantasizing about food I will never be talented enough to create, when my daydreams were interrupted by a siren that sounded a lot like what they use to announce tent checks. It cut off much sooner than normal, but I am crazy paranoid of missing a tent check and jeopardizing my group’s position in line. I dragged myself out of the sleeping bag and out of the tent and tromped over to the central part of K-ville where tent checks are conducted. Turns out it was a false alarm to lure people to the a capella concert going on over there, but I didn’t even have time to be annoyed because lo and behold was a crepe food truck!

I think crepes are one of the most wonderful foods invented. They’re special in part because I don’t get them often, but also because there’s so much room for creativity in filling them, and they’re always delicious. Also I love food trucks. So I was thrilled about the crepe truck.

I waited in line for half an hour. Apparently everyone else loves crepe trucks, too.

When I finally go to the front of the line, the man in the window asked for the ID number on my Duke Card. I dutifully read it off. “And what’s your PIN number?” he said.

“… my PIN number?” I echoed, (empty) stomach sinking. “I don’t have a PIN number. Or, I don’t know it, at least.”

“You set it up online,” he said, annoyed now that I was holding up the line. “You need it to use your food points with food trucks.”

I slunk away, feeling defeated. I decided right then that the worse thing in the world must be waiting for half an hour salivating about a fluffer-nutter crepe that never happens. “I hate d00k and their stupid food trucks,” I grumbled, kicking at a bush as I stomped back to my lonesome, crepe-less tent.

By the time I got back to the tent (approximately 90 seconds later) I was past my self-pity and, characteristically, in full “I’m going to win this” mode.

In a matter of seconds I marched back to the crepe truck armed with my new PIN. Somehow the line had disappeared in those intervening three minutes, so I went straight to the window and successfully, triumphantly, ordered my fluffer-nutter crepe: creamy peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, and chocolate chips encased in that warm, thin, freshly made crepe. Infinitely better than food porn, because it was real and it was finally in my hands.

All’s well that ends well.