Food handlers got to eat during their shift which made the shift seem easier. Food handlers got to take leftovers home and after a few weeks of pies and cookies, everything felt easier.

When there were no leftovers, I went to 7-Eleven. I went slowly, thinking there must be some way to avoid such lack of control. When I got to the store, the clerk said, "Hi." Some days I went there three times.

I loved bagels, but they were too hard to throw up, so I couldn't buy them. I grabbed a box of vanilla creams and a box of chewy chocolate chips. Then I picked up a pint of whole milk. I liked skim, but whole milk was like stomach grease. It made everything come up more smoothly.

I glanced down at what I collected. I worried maybe there wasn't enough food. I got a tube of Pillsbury frozen sugar cookie dough which came up easily every time.

Sometimes I stole the food, because it upset me to think how much money I spent on food when I was surrounded by free food at work.

I ate some cookies on the way back to my dorm to make the walk seem shorter. Everything was easier when I was eating.

When I got back to my dorm room, I sat down at my desk and ate. I ate all the cookies and finished half the tube of cookie dough and then my stomach started to hurt. I took the rest of the food to the incinerator, and sat back in the chair to wait; right after my stomach stopped hurting was the best time to vomit because the food was mushy enough to come up smoothly, but almost nothing had had time to leave my stomach.

I told myself I'd never do that again.

I took off all my clothes and leaned over the toilet. I stuck my finger down my throat as far as it would go and wiggled it around. The cookie dough came out. I threw up until I thought I'd gotten almost everything. I reached down into the toilet and squished the vomit to see what had come up. I was always careful not to heave too many extra times because I read that extensive vomiting could ruin the esophagus. My worst nightmare was that I'd have to go to the hospital with a torn esophagus.

My body had a feeling of relief and my head felt light. I brushed my teeth twice and rinsed off my body in a warm shower. I crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. I felt calm and peaceful. I felt very accomplished.

The failure is a synonym of the “everything” that she continuosly refers to, that needs to be unloaded through eating, the way she has found to ease the burden. She becomes a bulimic and executes a daily routine of eating the leftovers of her job and the unhealthy food she buys at a shop, having in mind the need of vomiting of afterwards that she carefully plans. This ritual reminds her of her inability of managing her own life, but she cannot fight against the sole thing that yields her “relief” (“I felt calm and peaceful. I felt very accomplished.”). Opposite to this brief sensation, she tolds herself “I'd never do that again” after having eaten too much: she does not want to continue when she feels the pain that produces her, although when she washes her fault she is relieved, in peace.

The bulimia, constituted by a ritual of eating and the amendment of vomiting, is the solution to many women in similar situations of distress, is an indicator of emotional problems and lack of control. She, our protagonist, is suffering from these because, we suspect from her outcome, she has not achieved anything from her research and to stop blaming herself she eats the whole day.

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