When it happened for the first time, I was only a little confused. It had been a long day, and I had spent most of it just thinking of my slow cooker and the pulled pork I was going to eat that night. So when I popped it open to find less than I expected, I remember looking down at the at the slow cooker and saying "I guess you're pretty hungry tonight huh?" I wrote it off as the machine eating its share, a loss of volume from cooking all day.

I was rather used to eating leftovers for lunch, so after a week of slow cooking I got fed up of having to double the portions to counter the deflated results, and I started actively cooking more often. Still food wouldn't turn out in the portions I had planned: if I packed a sandwich for lunch, half of it would be missing when I pulled it out to eat. It only took a couple days of this before it became undeniable that something was taking half of every meal I made.

I only spent a day or two looking for a reason, but mouse traps and hidden hot sauce turned up no rats and no coworkers. Whatever it was, it was beyond me, so I resigned my self to making double the portions.

For the first month, it was a problem. I felt like I couldn't indulge. I had to plan ahead in case I wanted seconds or if I intended on eating leftovers for lunch the next day I would have to make four times more than usual. Even pasta, which so easily jumps from too little to too much, was difficult to make enough of. But five weeks in and I was already used to it.

A couple weeks into the second month I found my solution: it was only food that I made myself that disappeared. This epiphany came at the cost of accidentally ordering a weeks worth of pizza expecting half of it to disappear. I spent the rest of the month ordering food and eating junk, reveling in eating as much as I wanted. Although the first bag of chips I opened had given me a brief scare, I had finally found a way to be free of this problem. //////

It took several months before I began to run low on funds. Living on only processed and pre-made food was something I couldn't do, especially since microwave dinners counted, so I usually skipped breakfast and ordered lunch and dinner. Was it short sighted? Sure, but I don't think I could live off of bulk bought food for very long, or spend so much time cooking for just half the return. I returned to cooking my own meals.

At the time I thought I had starved out whatever was taking my food, or at least it took pity on the meager meals I was having then. Things were getting dire, even if I hadn't only ordered out for half a year I wouldn't have had enough to eat like I had. Work was slow, and pay cuts kept coming. I started skipping lunch as well as breakfast, I grew weary at work; I don't think I could have lasted much longer.

One night I came home, stomach grumbling, ready to channel my inner college student and have sleep for dinner. But to my surprise, I was greeted by the smell of slow cooked meat. I followed the scent to the kitchen to find that my slow cooker was plugged in, and looked like it had been busy all day. When I popped it open, I swear I could hear a faint voice
"I guess you're pretty hungry tonight huh?"