Gulley and I lived on the convenience store diet throughout college. We would stop at 7-11 on the way to class in the morning and start our day with a Big Gulp. Dr. Pepper for her. Real Coke for me. Most days we would each buy a package of powdered donuts to go with our 72 oz. beverage.
After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
We’d head to our Intercultural Communication class and daintily sip our carbonated drinks and eat our powdered donuts while we listened to Professor Gonzales lecture about you know, culture and communication. Obviously, all that sugar and caffeine was causing my brain to short circuit, because I actually made a 13 on a test in that class.
A 13.
I’ll never forget that he was about to pass out the graded tests and gave some lecture about how most people did pretty well, but there was one person who made a 13. Gulley laughed and wrote a note on my paper that said, “Maybe it was you. Ha. Ha.”
It was me.
Ha. Ha.
And after I got that test back, I gathered up my donuts and industrial-sized beverage and headed to my academic advisor’s office to let her know I was dropping the class. I mean, let’s be honest, you can’t recover from a 13.
Anyway, after a hard morning of academic achievement, we would drive back to our apartment and then go back to 7-11 with our roommates to get another Big Gulp. Everyone needs a little afternoon pick me up and what says pick me up better than 144 oz. of caffeine and sugar?
As we talked about our Big Gulp consumption, I had a few thoughts.
1. Did I drink even a sip of water throughout my college career?
2. Why could I not figure out that maybe part of what was contributing to my ever increasing weight was the fact that I was easily consuming 2000 calories a day in beverage alone?
And that’s not counting the Zima.
3. Do college students still drink Big Gulps or have they become extinct with the advent of the Grande Mocha Latte with extra whip?
4. It’s interesting that these days, unless I’m on a road trip, it would never even occur to me to drive to a convenience store for the sole purpose of purchasing something to drink. Sonic, yes. QuikMart, no.
I realize I have rambled enough about this entire subject, but during our Big Gulp conversation, Gulley brought up a memory that I had long forgotten.
Big shock there.
During my first senior year in college and Gulley’s junior year, we lived in a duplex right around the corner from a Quikmart. Needless to say, we were frequent customers making around 4-5 visits a day. It was our standard stop. We even knew all the cashiers.
One night, Gulley’s mama called and asked her, “Do you know somebody named Al?”
Gulley thought about it and said, “No, I don’t think so.”
Her mama said, “Well someone named Al called here looking for you and said he knows you from the Quikmart.”
It was then that we realized that Al was one of the cashiers at our favorite stop. It seems he had gotten Gulley’s phone number off of one of her checks and wanted to ask her out. And no, Al wasn’t exactly date material for a variety of reasons, but first and foremost because he was about 35 which, of course, is ancient. Fortunately, the number on her check was her parent’s home phone number, not ours.
As were laughing about this story this week, I made the comment that, looking back, it’s kind of scary that Al got her phone number off her check.
And Gulley said, “I’m not sure what’s scarier, that he got my number off my check or that I wrote a check for 94 cents to pay for a Big Gulp.”
Hope y’all have a lovely weekend.
**Originally published March 30, 2007**
Skip to Comment Form
I think the less we remember about how we behaved and what we ate in college, the better. It’s appalling, really. Here our parents spent 18 years teaching us to eat right, clean our rooms, and get a decent amount of sleep; and then we do none of that as soon as we get our freedom. I think I lived on potato chips, doritos, and orange soda one year. And I vacuumed my apartment exactly once, to get up all the pine needles from the Christmas tree. But I couldn’t figure out why my mother refused to sit down when she visited.
Hilarious! It seems that we were on the same diet back in the day!
ok now I did slightly better than that, I had a fridge in my room and kept the dr pepper in there but carried a can @ a time to class I am sure. Though I do know our cafeteria had plenty of options for meals and we did eat breakfast there regularly.
Steff
Oh my you’re making me think of all the crap I lived off of in college. And I smoked. YUCK!!! I think I hate more Oodles of Noodles than humanly possible. And the cafeteria food was SO bad that I lived off of Captain Crunch over vanilla ice cream there. Good thing I am 6’2″ or I’d been the size of a whale.
julie
I do believe you just described 5 years of my life pretty correctly. Except in that last year, when I was working on the masters, I put my Coke (or Sunny Delight) in Starbucks cups. Fooled ‘em every single time.
What’s scary is how many microwaved burritos I ate at a convenience store at 3am when I was in college. It’s a wonder I still have my gallbladder.
You have made two very interesting points: 1. You did not die from not drinking water everyday, much less 8 glasses of water and B. Al turned out not to be a deranged serial killer. I long for those good old days.
Wow. Our cafeteria was actually really good, so I mostly ate real food. But there were definitely many trips to 7-11 for a Slurpee.
I rarely see 7-11s anymore…sad.
(We’ll not think about how many days in the cafeteria I ate a mixture of Kix cereal, strawberry frozen yogurt, and peanut butter…)
My college diet was in a food group all its own: JUNK
And I gained about 20 lbs in 2 years to prove it.
Instead of the QuikMart, we had a little ‘mom & pop’ drive-in, much similar to Sonic, where we ate chili cheese fries with mustard at all hours of the night/morning.
And when we weren’t there, you can bet we were snacking on Cheese Puffs, dill pickles, Easy Mac.
I feel like I’ve just gained 5 lbs just thinking about my former eating habits!!!
THOSE WERE THE DAYS!
This story made me grin. I remember my last year of college my apartment mates would walk EVERY NIGHT to Amy’s Ice Cream in Austin, buy ice cream, and then walk back to our apartment. It was maybe a mile and a half round trip. One day one of them made the comment that their jeans were no longer fitting. The other two concurred that they were having clothing issues, too. Though they each knew the culprit, they continued their nightly ice cream excursions…fun memories.
(Personally, I was a Dr. Pepper drinker. Once one of my classmates said she never saw me without a Dr. Pepper. Now I am told I am never without coffee!)
I ate at the cafeteria three meals a day because I had a meal plan. I never went to 7-11 (but I did got to Taco Bell a couple of times). I was a poor college kid, for crying our loud! I couldn’t afford those kinds of eating habits. I still can’t, which is probably very good now [smile].
How did you guys make it!?
~Luke
Your FIRST senior year! Ha.
I know of what you speak….
I am curious…are Sonic drinks that good? Many American blogs I read speak of the “Sonic drink”.
Too funny!!
Have a wonderful weekend!
That was funny.. A check for a big gulp, too funny
You obviously don’t live in Indiana. I get a Polar Pop quite often. All the cool kids do it. : )
My freshman year of college I went to a podunk school in West Texas. This town only had 2000 people and no wal mart. They did however build “the” dollar general in the middle of the fall semester. but there was a quick check, and most of my meals consisted of a deep fried burrito (yea those) a 44 oz dr pepper, and a bag of hot cheetos, because you could get those all for $2! Long live the Big Gulp!
I rarely ate meals in my school cafeteria. First semester I was there I started on the 20 meal plan. By the next semester, I’m pretty sure I was down to 10 (required for on-campus students) and ate about 5 a week. Lunch was decent – soup and sandwich every day. I made frequent trips to the 7-11 for a big gulp and ate a lot of fast food and macaroni and cheese. I’m in graduate school now and am extremely thankful I have a kitchen!
It was diet coke for me initially, then I switched to coffee my senior year. Ahhh, the memories. I think I lived off of soda and crackers for most of two years. One roommate I had would not clean, ever. Once I got tired of doing it all, the kitchen was literally taken over by trash. It was a pretty gross apartment. That may be where my OCD began. . .
I just totally relived my college years. Thank you for the memory.
I remember me some big gulps. That was before the value menus at the fast food restaurants. If you only had a couple bucks you went to 7-11 if you had a $5 you went to McDonalds or Jack n the box.
I ate many a corndogs and burritos at 7-11 back in the day.
Love the part about, “my first senior year”…so Aggieland!
Ha ha…I just stumbled upon your blog recently. For me and my roommate, it was huge cups of “gas station cappuccinos” and packages of Snackwell’s Devil’s Food cookies for breakfast – on our way to our one required Phys. Ed. class, which was entitled “Walking.”
I swear that you and I are cut from the same cloth.
*My first senior year: yep. Been there. Done that.
*13 on a quiz: Not so much, but I did fail psychology. Twice.
This was great! Thanks for sharing (again!).
Loved this post and love it now!
When I was in college , waaaaaay back dodging the dinosaurs that were lurking behind every tree, there was a local restaurant that had the best tea. When we would lie out on our beach towels on the roof of the dorm (oh, yes, we did that)…everybody would send for the Richard’s tea. Fond memories.
.94 check. That is good.
As a college student at the present time, the drink of choice is coffees. Usually from Dunkin’ Donuts as it is the closest to the college. Followed by a close second to McD’s.
The 1st time I went (1993), I believe it was a KwikSac beverage.
We lived at dunkin donuts every night- I actually think the guy who worked that shift got invited to a lot of our weddings!
In Aggieland now, a Nalgene with water is the popular choice. As for me, I worked at a coffee shop so I had (free!) coffee, tea, or Italian sodas in class. Yum.
I have made the bold decision to no longer stock my house with Diet Cokes.
So, that would be me you saw at the KwikMart today, with the wild eyes and the shakes as I debated if 96 ounces would be enough to support my habit.
Hillarious! I love the part about the .94 check. I totally remember writing a .92 check at McDonald’s in Auburn (no other McDs I knew of accepted checks back in 1988!). I remember being a little stumped on how to write out a check for .92 – I thought “how do I spell that on the ‘dollar’ line?” I finally decided on “92/100″ followed by one really LONG line! College…good times!!!
OH Good Lord!!!!
I took that class. I had Professor Gonzales. I never thought anyone could make me feel better about it, but you just did.
What. A. Horrible. Class.
I had a thing for Double Dave’s Pepperoni Rolls. I once had a delivery of them to my dorm room. Inside the box they had written, “449 McFadden, Over 3 billion served.”
The memories – they bring a tear to my eye.
(I’m headed to College Station for the Army game in September – I’d love to meet for a Big Gulp if you make it to that game!)
Comments on this entry are closed.
Skip to Comment Form