The look...

It happens often. More so if you are in a hostel, I suppose. You are sitting/standing, just doing anything, preferably in the night. You know how the hostel never sleeps. And there comes the white knight in the dark night. I know, I should put my copyrights on that previous line. And what has the white knight brought along? Food! Okay, the whole scene can also happen in the day time, but then my cool line won't be valid. So we are talking about the poor knight. Obviously, little does he know that he is the knight, or whatever, maybe the vehicle for the food, that will end up in our bellies, which is a good thing, until of course he is good enough to voluntarily share his larder with the likes of you and me.

I mentioned the 'little does he know' part because in most cases, the guy doesn't really know what/who he is up against, which being a perpetually hungry, perpetually greedy bunch of people, perpetually willing to loot anyone and everyone of their foodie resources.

Let;s run the whole scene once.

The guy enters.

He sees the the predators are looming all around him.

He tries to keep things quiet, to himself. Sudden;y he makes a sound. (Damn that polythene bad on the floor!!!) He barely escapes slipping.

Three heads turn to see what happened.

They see him. More importantly, they see his prized possession.

(Shit.)

ATTACK!! He can run. He can hide. But as Enrique says, there's no escaping our love.....for food.

Okay, maybe nothing so dramatic. The problem is not that you have food with you. The problem is that others saw that you have food with you.

It's almost like this. When you find someone looking at your food, firstly, the food is no more yours for keeps, until you are a member of the 'shameless' category, to which, I too belong quite shamelessly, wherein you have no trouble watching people drool over your food.... okay, maybe not drooling over your food, which would make the whole scene pretty gross, but I guess, the point has been decently conveyed.

So when you see this guy eying your stuff, you feel helpless for having what the other doesn't. Besides that, one always is repeatedly reminded by his elders, albeit subconsciously, that 'Sharing is a good habit.', and as Bruce Willis says, old habits die hard. Even if they totally kill you in the process. And to top things off, there's always that look that we hungry kind have, that of an innocent cat. The same look, those big shiny eyes, that helpless cute face, maybe not the cute part of it, but anyways, the sort of face you want to 'ku-chee-ku', in spite of knowing that it has the ability to snap at you any time you give it an opportunity. And hence, you decide to part with a part of what was yours, reminding yourself that it is good to be good, and all sorts of bull of that sort. And then it comes. ATTACK!

Warning! Lock your doors after you enter to prevent collateral damage.