If you give a senior a meal swipe, they will want to sneak no less than two and no more than 13 pieces of Tupperware with them into the Deece.
And if they bring Tupperware into the Deece, they will definitely load up on ungodly proportions of spinach, onions and shredded cheese from the salad bar. And bread. And cookies. Anything but buckets of capers.
With this fresh supply of stolen goods the senior will scurry back to their house and stock the fridge with enough food for three dinners, or one 2 a.m. stress-eating session.
The senior will reminisce about times when food was at their fingertips.
They will be bitter.
So they will get used to the idea of eating on a regular basis and wish to incorporate this into their future plans.
When the senior sits down to formulate their future plans—a process which will cause them to jolt from their sleep in the wee hours of the morning, flinging them into a downward spiral of despair, heartache, loneliness and a shocking state of arousal—they will decide that what they need is a job.
The search for a job will leave them with sleepless nights, and the senior will find themself becoming unhinged.
When the senior becomes unhinged, they might experience a slip of the tongue, where words soar from their mouth at breakneck speeds and eviscerate those within their path.
Honestly, it’s pretty cool, but you might get caught in the crossfire.
When you are caught in the crossfire, the senior might start to notice they don’t have as many friends as they originally thought.
The senior will feel even more lonely.
If the senior begins to feel lonelier than thought possible, they will lie awake at night, remembering how horny they’ve become…and their jobless existence.
So the senior, in a frenzy, will apply to all of the jobs.
When they apply to all of the jobs, including ones in fields for which they are not qualified in the least bit, they will live in fear of rejection.
This is nothing new for the senior, so they won’t react; however, in this liminal space without a secure future, the senior will live the life of a hermit.
The senior, now hermit, will disappear for days on end, applying to more jobs and losing more hours of sleep.
When the senior embarks on a life without sleep, their dreams will blend into reality: sharks fly across the sky, monkeys dance on an ignited stovetop, Cappy performs scarf dances on the Library lawn.
In the midst of this hallucinatory mindset, the senior will develop a plan, a HUGE PLAN.
The plan will go into highly specific details about how to secure employment, but the steps they will need to take might land them in prison.
You will warn them not to follow through on the plan, but at this point the senior is long gone—their mind a soupy pudding.
And when their mind is soup, they will seriously consider using sex to earn an entry-level or assistant position at some company. With benefits.
The senior will drool over the potential benefits, waking up from hazy dreams with their face caked in spittle and mucus.
You will find them disgusting.
And they won’t disagree.
It would do you good to remind them to shower, or at the very least tell them to replenish their supply of deoderant.
When you bring their grossness to the forefront of their consciousness, they will stumble down to Stop & Shop.
At Stop & Shop the senior will be blinded by the fluorescent lighting, and their nose will burn from the aroma of grocery-store sushi melting in its glass case.
When placed in a siutation with real food, the senior’s hunger will begin to dig into their deflated stomach, clawing at their insides and screaming, “Feed me, Seymour!”
And upon listening to this command, the senior will remember the tingling sensation of food on their tongue.
They will decide to head back home, to find work.
Before writing another cover letter, though, they might want a bite to eat.
So they will ask for another meal swipe.
And if they ask for a meal swipe…they will want to bring some Tupperware.