fandomhigh | Urban Survival - The Uglier Side of City Living, Wednesday, Period 2

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Urban Survival - The Uglier Side of City Living, Wednesday, Period 2

"Hookay," Sparkle said, blowing out a breath anxiously before starting into the lecture. "So, food. This is going to be one of the most important things you can get your hands on, for obvious reasons, besides water. Water gets its own entire class, because it's about so much more than just hydrating yourself. And food..."

He grimaced just a bit.

"How you go about this one is going to depend pretty strongly on where you're from, or what your particular skill set is. You'll always be contending with things like how a lot of food just doesn't last, so homelessness is an awful lot of hand-to-mouth living, especially where food itself is involved. In some places, things like the food bank are an option, to a point. Like we learned last week, there's a screening process for plenty of them, though anybody can stop by for simple things like bread and a few extras here and there. And once you get that food... a lot of it needs to be cooked. Finding places to cook food in a city can be harder than you think. A lot of cities tend to frown on people just starting fires in the middle of a park, after all. Unless it's one of those fancy park-campground deals and they have, like, fire pits set aside for exactly that. Some people, again in more technologically developed worlds, manage to get their hands on those little portable gas-powered cooking stoves. Great for food prep, if you have a means to keep the thing in fuel. Fuel costs money. Then you need... you know. A pot or a frying pan."

Was he rambling again? Sure he was.

"In America there are these things called food stamps, which are also great, but my understanding of them is that you can only buy stuff that needs to be prepared at home in most states. So again we run into the 'how the hell do I even cook this' issue."

Did you like your Kraft Dinner crunchy? Sparkle too, sure.

"Modern cities might also have things like soup kitchens, which just... serve meals at certain times of the day. Walk in, eat. Other things to keep an eye open for are things like community picnics, church potlucks... basically any sort of big social event where you can get lost in the crowd, stuff your face, and then make off with as much of the sandwich tray contents as you can pocket so you have supper later too." He gave the class a wry smile. "I still pocket shit at the welcome picnics here. Old habits die hard."

And this was all still fairly modern stuff.

"From there, we get into, like, panhandling, which comes with its own set of problems, but might get you enough to at least buy a hot meal now and then. Again... another class, for that one. Other food options for the time being... foraging. Gardening. Hunting. Not so much in, like, the deep freeze of winter in a super developed city, but if your particular idea of 'urban' has a few more parks and a few less skyscrapers, or if you're already living comfortably on the outskirts of town, the climate is on your side, and you have a little corner of ground that you can keep safe from being trampled or something you can make a kill with that won't bring the wrath of law enforcement down on your head for using an illegal weapon within city limits... You're still probably going to have to cook it, unless you enjoy the risk of disease and parasites, but it's an option worth considering. Keep in mind, gardening isn't generally an instant payoff deal. Not everyone can cultivate a garden instantly, and you're at the mercy of things like weather, hungry vermin, unwitting passers-by just fucking stepping on your goddamn lettuce, and even vandals. I have yet to hear of a community garden for feeding the homeless that hasn't at some point been trashed by some shithead who thought that literally taking food from people's mouths was funny."

He smiled wryly.

"After all that, the only option I have left is theft. I'm not supposed to encourage that one, but fuck it. There are these places where people leave food out neatly sorted on shelves or in market carts, labeled for freshness, and if your only other option is fucking starving to death, get good at not getting caught. Get really good at it. Depending on where you are, the punishment for theft can be way more severe than in other places. Know what it is before you commit to this one. Know what it is that you're getting yourself into if you get caught."

He took a moment to tick things off on his fingers, and then shrugged and looked back at the class.

"That's... that's kind of everything I can come up with," he admitted, "and like I said, my expertise in the area comes from a city in modern-day Canada, which has harsh winters, but plenty of options if you know where to look. Mileage is going to vary on this one. It's going to vary a lot. So... let's talk about the cities you know. Let's hear if any of these options might exist for you, or what else there might be, now that you're thinking on the subject. How about any pointers for cooking for those of us not living in the Coleman portable stove era? Or foraging, for those of us who haven't ever had to do it? It's open discussion day again, so... let's discuss. Openly."

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Hungrily!

Rufus Shinra

Jalian d'Arsennette

Ahsoka Tano

Gratuity Tucci

Ada Miller

Shiemi Moriyama

Cassandra Pentaghast

Not as appetizing as a lecture on eating usually is around here.

How would you go about getting food if you were homeless in a city? Are there any things that Sparkle listed that would work for you, in yours? What about things that absolutely wouldn't? Have you got anything to suggest for stuff like the frying pan problem, or pointers on hunting or - ahem - the re-distribution of property to those who might need it more, without first asking permission? How about those of you with experience in this area, what did you do?

Jalian frowned. "Foraging means less cooking, but the plants different places are strange," she said. "I can hunt, but I don't eat meat. But if others would trade different foods for meat, maybe?"

She shrugged. "I would probably steal. The cheap foods in this place mostly have too much sugar. It makes me sick."

"And there are dietary concerns to consider too," Sparkle agreed, nodding. "Like, free bread really doesn't help somebody with a sensitivity to gluten, and peanut butter can just straight-up kill some people. But usually in a city you can find other people who are in a similar situation to you... barter might not be completely out of the question, so long as you know what to look for to make sure the food you're trading for is safe."

"Vending machines," Tip said. "Not the most nutritionially balanced meal, but it'll get you through the day. And it's a machine so it's almost a victimless crime."

Only almost. And they weren't the easiest things to steal from without anyone noticing it was broken into, especially if you were an eleven year old. But hey, like Sparkle said, if it's break the law or starve. . . .

"Yeah, it's not really sustainable in the long run, but if you can get, like, some potato chips into your face, at least it'll do away with the hunger pains until you can find something better," Sparkle agreed. "People are less likely to be watching them the same way they might if you're trying to snitch candy bars off a shelf in a corner store. Just gotta be careful not to get your hand stuck."

A beat.

"Or to shake it so that one falls on you."

People legit died from that. Vending machines were statistically more deadly than shark attacks.

"It probably helps to have tiny little kid arms," Tip admitted. Or noodly amphibious alien arms, for that matter.

"Probably a bit," Sparkle agreed, smiling faintly. "Not necessarily an option for anybody in this room going forward, unless you can draft a little kid into using their tiny little kid arms to further your cause."

"If you're willing to share, I bet you could," Tip said. "Though . . . I guess then there's the 'bad influence' argument to be made."

"Depends," Sparkle replied, grinning faintly. "How hungry's the kid?"

And would eating food you got the kid to illegally scrounge up for you then make you into a jackass? Were you some kind of vending machine theft mob boss? Vending Machine Fagin?

Hey, you could stand guard while they did the robbing. That wasn't a mob boss thing, that was a simple, sensical division of labor for mutual benefit.

"Very, at the time," Tip said. "Though J.Lo didn't actually eat anything that you could get in a vending machine."

Okay, Sparkle still loved the hell out of that guy's name.

"Nah? Pickier eater or something?"

"Alien metabolism," Tip said. "We occasionally got into fights about which toothpaste was for hygiene and which was for snacking."

That deserved a moment's pause.

"The bubblegum-flavoured sparkly stuff is totally for snacking, right?"

Look, Sparkle would be lying if he said the temptation wasn't sometimes there.

"He's more partial to minty flavors. Well, in toothpaste. He really likes the 'mountain fresh' type ones in other things." J.Lo had very strange eating habits. "But he'd probably be totally into the sparkles."

"I mean, either way, he probably has amazing breath."

This was getting super off-topic, and really, Sparkle didn't much care. He'd already done the spilling-his-guts thing today. Might as well talk about toothpaste.

"Yeah . . . the rest of him smells like fish."

Cats loved Boov.

"Minty... fish."

Well, couldn't help it if that's what you were made to smell like, Sparkle supposed. He shrugged.

"I mean, the important thing is that you both kept fed, anyway."

Shiemi was sure she was going to fail this class. "Ano. Never for survival, but foraging and gardening... I've done some of that?"

"Hey, that's a great start, though," Sparkle pointed out. "You have a lot of experience with plants, right? So that means you know what you can eat and what you shouldn't put into your mouth, like, ever. I didn't have that as a kid. You learn a lot of hard lessons the worst possible way when you get hungry if you don't know stuff like that."

Shiemi nodded hard. "You can die if you eat the wrong thing or even the right thing at the wrong time or the wrong way."

"Right. So it's important to know exactly what it is you're eating, if you're going to go that route. Because desperately hungry is understandable, but if you eat something poisonous, that's kinda worse than being hungry."

Seriously. Dying sucked. He knew these things.

"Are there ways to learn that, though? I mean, if you have to do it to survive. How would you know?"

"Besides trial and error?" Sparkle shrugged a little. "Depends if you're literate or not, or if there are people around that you can trust. Trial and error is the worst way to learn that sort of thing, but if there's somebody you trust who knows, they can just tell you. If not, I'd suggest paying the library a visit. At least around here, they're free, and so long as you aren't disturbing anybody, they'll generally let you do your own thing. So why not look up edible plants that are local to your area? If they aren't in books, libraries often have computer stations that you can use, free of charge, too."

A pause.

"Which is really only any good in realities like this one, yeah, but that seems like something that at least a few people in this class would have access to."

He's only kind of kicking himself for admitting to the class that he still filched sandwiches from the welcome picnics here even though he doesn't have to anymore. This stuff was important, shut up.

If she's around, today!

Now Tip wanted a sandwich.

And she still couldn't bring herself to eat most things sold in vending machines, anymore.

Anybody who looks at my Google search history is really going to start wondering about job security in the animation industry.

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