A guy’s gotta eat when a guy’s gotta eat

If any of my roommates are reading this, I obviously would never steal from you. Honestly, this article isn’t even funny because I would never do this, so how would I know how to do it? You should just stop reading and check out of The Spectrum’s other great columns.

Great, now that the suckers are gone, let’s get down to business. What can I say? A guy’s gotta eat.

The first one you can try is burying it. This one is kind of a long con. Simply cover some of their food in the fridge or freezer with more and more of your food. Eventually, they’ll forget they still have it or where it is. Congrats, it’s now up for grabs.

Now we get to my bread and butter: bread and butter. Bread is easy. Take it from the middle, never heels. Don’t overdo it, and rotate which roommate makes the donation. You may not feel good about it, but you know what they say: No pain, no grain.

The butter is a little riskier. It’s worth it for that golden, artery-clogging goodness. You need roommates that butt their butter from boxes with four or more sticks. It’s crucial that you buy the same brand butter with a similarly large box. The trick is that you never touch the current stick in use. You simply move one of the full sticks from their box to yours. No one keeps track of how many sticks of butter they have left; they only care about the one that’s open.

The boldest strategy is to just see if they’ll call you on it. You can play it off as a joke. A sitcom classic is to just pick up someone else’s food and start eating it. Depending on your roommate dynamic, you could also just start eating from their cabinets and challenge them to start something by the look in your eye.

The most devious strategy of all, however, is to be nice to them. Ask them how they are doing and laugh at their jokes. Spend quality time with them. Maybe even share your food with them or buy them meals on special occasions. The damn idiots will actually offer you their food! Oh man, some people I tell ya.