Food Seeking

January 1st 2026,

Most people start the new year with resolutions but I’m starting this year confessions. First, I have been sharing my food despite the rules against it for the past few weeks. Second, the mess that the world is in…everything it’s all my fault.Well, The EMP wasn’t my idea.

I knew JD wanted my food as soon as I heard the crack…hunger is the only reason anyone breaks in anywhere since the Megabot overlords took over.

Sure enough, before I could blink he had his weapon on me “ I’ll ask one more time! Which thumb do you want to lose?”

From what I’ve read in the newspapers, most people would have decided for me. Maybe I’m just dealing with someone who is desperately hungry. He doesn’t want my thumbs. He desires what only my thumbs can open.

“Look, I would share my food if it wasn’t illegal. If I couldn’t be prosecuted for willfully sharing food with someone but, I can’t, I just can’t”

“Exactly!, The robots won’t view you as a willing, if I remove your thumb,” the guy holding me at gunpoint said through gritted teeth.

“ You don’t want to go to prison and I don’t want to lose my unborn baby or my child who has cystic fibrosis. 

Damn robots are as big as houses and great at fighting off equally large dinosaurs. It turns out that they are great at nuclear cleanup too. For all of that, they can’t even figure out that some people need a lot of extra calories. My daughter who has Cystic Fibrosis needs about 5,000 calories a day and her pregnant mom needs extra right now too. But the f-ing bots see giving anyone extra food as promoting inequality and social injustice. 

So my daughter doesn’t get any more than the three 650-calorie meal trays a day. Her older brother and I have gone without food for almost two weeks. Our shares are redirected.

A lot of the food my daughter Lindsay eats doesn’t get absorbed by her body. It’s especially difficult for her to process lipids. So she needs significantly more fat than average people. It’s like how you would have to fill your gas tank more often if it had a hole in it that kept your car from using most of the fuel.

I know that your meal trays will only open to your fingerprint. Don’t make me ask again or I’ll probably shoot off both your thumbs, just to have a second one to try. 

All this chatter is annoying. Just pick a thumb and point me towards the freezer…in the basement, I guess?!”

The burly man snarled at me. He hardly had to ask. Everyone had tried to deal with the problems caused by the “ Robotic Initiative for Equality of Human Provision and Protection ” commonly referred as the “ controlled food laws” by hiding their freezer in a labyrinth under their house. Most people attempt to make it so complex that they might actually forget the way; just in case anything like my current predicament arose. 

Of course, no one‘s going to believe that you can’t locate your freezer if you have to go there daily . And I, unfortunately, don’t have the dubious privilege of employing robot servants

“ Hang on a second, let me think,” I stammered. “There’s got to be a way for you to steal a clear thumbprint from me without the necessity of actually stealing my thumb… it just can’t look obvious that I was a witting accomplice in obtaining it.”

“Well, you can think about it while you lead me to your freezer,” he said as he gruffly pushed me down the towards the top of the basement stairs.

“ Hang on, just a moment, Let me get a candle,“ I said breathlessly. It shouldn’t be surprising that the stairway is dark after the EMP. If we crack our heads open, you won’t get any food.”

The man nodded and paused briefly in front of the desk in my living room. 

“ Your candles in there?” He inquired pointing a thumb towards the desk drawer. 

“ Yeah, I replied. “ Matches too”

“ Well let’s get it done then,” he replied never taking his pistol off me for a second.

“ Kind of crazy how we got here, huh?” He said, as I fumbled with the matches, trying to get the candle lit with hands that felt and looked like they were experiencing their own localized earthquake or grand mal seizure. 

“I mean first President Marshal announces that dinosaurs created through genetic engineering will be available as household pets within two years and that happens. Of course, everyone assumed he meant domesticated dinosaurs and I’m guessing they tried for that and failed… I don’t know who the genius was who decided we needed apex predators as big as houses for pets but he is the joker I should really be aiming this gun at. if I could get my hands on that flipping idiot I would starve him for a few weeks and then build a gallows for him.”

His words startle me and I automatically drop the match that I have been trying to light…

“ Calm down! I think to myself. This guy has no idea that all of this, the whole Little Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly progression of dinosaurs, massive self-improving tactical robots that look like a hybrid of transformers and the Terminator, to kill the dinosaurs, nuclear weapon strikes to try to kill the robots, everything electronic except the robots being fried in the resulting electromagnetic pulse leaped from the pages of a story that you wrote… just get the match lit before this guy completely loses it

“Yeah..” I forced a laugh. 

“It’s unbelievable that the robots had thought to seal themselves in Faraday Cages each night just in case of an electromagnetic pulse, If they hadn’t been so good at improving themselves, I think that might’ve actually worked.”

“ Yeah, it might have, but setting off nuclear weapons in an area we had to live in wasn’t too bright. Now we have massive metal protectors thinking that we humans can’t manage our own affairs and controlling food like it’s a drug. 

Naturally, if you need more than the robots think you should you’re going to lie about a broken freezer and risk getting labeled as a food seeker and getting sent to community meals, where the robots watch what you eat three times a day. 

I don’t envy the people who have to walk five miles each way to their nearest meal center. They probably end up burning more calories than they get from the meals.”

“Yeah, it’s too bad that the EMP disabled most of the modern cars too,”

“ You know? Some people are trying to covertly start gardens and raise small,pets that technically could be used as food.”

This guy didn’t seem super evil or anything. Maybe he could use this idea if he hadn’t thought of it before and not have the risks associated with robbing people or the black market.

I’m sure the robots didn’t see it coming but of course there are shady characters trying to take advantage of the situation. People who dumpster dive for leftovers from the sanctioned meal trays, do their best to repackage them in less technologically advanced trays; ones that don’t require a thumb print to open and resell them cheaply.

At first glance, it might seem like that isn’t that bad of a practice but some of the crime scene evidence pictures of the “ meals” that have been confiscated from these groups are extremely disgusting. Mold, insects even mice crawling all over things.

Come to think of it, I can definitely see how robbing people at gun point for fresh food, even if all our so called “ fresh food” is frozen by the time we get it from the subterranean farms that our admittedly intelligent overlords implemented to insure that food production would continue after the nuclear warhead that was only intended to create an electromagnetic pulse and fry the robots was set off too low in the atmosphere and had other catastrophic consequences.

In many ways, it was recovering from that accident that caused the robots to question human behavior concerning food and ultimately to decide that throughout history, humanity has used food unjustly. 

In their minds, if humans all need food to fuel, it should be divided exactly equally among humans. After all, each of them has to use the exact same amount of “ formula Z” robot fuel each day ( in a major effort to protect themselves, the robots redesigned their fuel systems.. no human even knows what ingredients go into formula Z now).

The EMP seems to have made them hyper-vigilant about any efforts to scrub their metallic race from history). Lest anyone question why humanity has “ let a bunch of overgrown junk yard rejects take over society, you try dealing with things that can swat fighter planes out of the sky like flies… especially after an EMP has alerted them to the less than heart-warming sentiments that humans harbor towards them. 

Not only did the EMP destroy most of our technology, but any element of surprise also evaporated. 

If anyone ever reads this and thinks that they have a workable solution that won’t have unforeseen consequences that ultimately dig the hole deeper, please let me know. I’m completely out of ideas and almost out of purple pages in the journal that the Wish Granter gave me. 

He warned me that everything I wrote in the small leather bound book would come into reality. Moreover, I actually have to find solutions for any problems I create and I’m starting to see that humanity might not be able solve the problems that we create.

My grandma used to say that sometimes God does not give us exactly what we ask for because we don’t realize all of the implications and consequences that could come as a result of granting our requests. 

Since I got this journal, I am seeing her point in stark clarity. I had no idea that my childhood longing to experience dinosaurs could have led to such profound trouble. Then my closest friend ( the only person I trusted to see the journal) suggested that another of my childhood longings might be able to solve the problem of the dinosaurs… giant versions of the Transformer toys.

Of course, they would need to be friendly,protective of humans; well armed, self-improving and smart enough to deal with any challenges that emerged while eradicating the enormous lizards.

Steve and I worked for days on end crafting what we thought was the perfect solution to the dinosaurs. 

The trouble was, the robots tried to protect humans from everything imaginable. They set up curfew. They insisted on redesigning most public areas to resemble the padded rooms of mental hospitals.

The first food restrictions made it illegal to manufacture or any food that people could possibly choke on.

They say people will generally trade freedom for security and the threat of life-sized dinosaurs that can grow up to 40 feet tall certainly created the need for security. Nonetheless, I can say from experience, that the willingness to trade these commodities has a limit. For nearly everyone, that limit was reached when people found themselves unable to get steak or anything else that hadn’t been reduced to consistency of baby food or jello.

The first attempted air strikes against the robots resulted in the robots, catching the planes in their hands and declaring that flight didn’t look safe. They reminded the pilots about the dangers of pterodactyls and offered to carry them and the planes to their destinations.

In frustration, someone thought to set off an EMP but no one noticed that the robots had installed faraday cages on their island. I am not sure how the military actually got the planes off the ground without the robots noticing; but now I think everyone wishes they hadn’t. So much for designing the robots in such a way that they would be able to clean up any unfortunate side effects of their existence.

We thought that intelligent beings would be a better solution than a natural disaster because a natural disaster can’t keep the best interests of people in mind and it can’t clean up after itself. We were evidently very very wrong.

The EMP set society technologically back a few centuries and convinced the robots that “ the overwhelming majority of humans appear to have the intelligence of brain-damaged iguanas and that’s not being fair…to brain-damaged iguanas”.

That is a quote from one of the newspapers that has appeared since the EMP. 

The robots decided that the we fragile humans are safer without advanced technology. Therefore, although they have restored technology that is available in their headquarters they have only seen fit to entrust each human household with an extra large carosine powered freezer and of course, the meal trays that only unlock to each family member’s unique thumbprint. 

Everyone gets the same meals each month: 31 breakfasts, 31 lunches and 31 dinners. Babies are expected to be breast fed. 

Of course, there’s been attempts to explain to the guardians that unlike machines, humans have unique needs. However, our careless use of nuclear weapons has utterly convinced the robots that we are clueless about our best interests.

When they do realize that some food might be detrimental they simply remove the problematic components from all of the trays. It’s nearly impossible to get anything with refined sugars since the guardians realized that diabetics can’t handle it. 

“ How many tries does it take to light a flipping candle?” My assailant finally asked.

“ You try getting it lit when your hands are so shaky, cold and clammy that you feel like you could make ice cream just by grabbing the right part of a cow,” I retorted.

“ Ha ha! This under duress act wouldn’t look very convincing if we switched places, now would it?” 

“ I guess no. But have you thought about trying to solve your problems with a garden?” I asked as I finally succeeded in getting the candle going and we headed downstairs.

“ Well, gardening isn’t a good source of lipids which is what my daughter Lindsay needs with her Cystic Fibrosis. And if the robots catch on they confiscate the food is use it for the standard food trays. 

Also that behavior can get one sent to jail if they think you are planning on selling it or to the community meals if they think you’re trying to get more than what you’re entitled to under the food scheduling system. Once it’s on record that you go to community meals you have to earn take home trays by following all the rules. If anything happe to prevent you from attending meals at your assigned center you just go hungry.

“ Oh I didn’t know that they assigned you to a specific location. I thought you could just go to the nearest one,”

“ Nope! You have to check in at your assigned location and scan your thumb print before each meal… keeps people from center hoping and getting more portions than the overgrown trash cans think you’re entitled to.

“ wow what happens if there’s a fire at your assigned locations?” 

Well, technically you can go to the hospital and explain the situation but if there’s any chance that the robots are in earshot, or worse, the moles who inform on any person who seeks to subvert the rule of the guardians, usually in exchange for use of technology or extra food; the staff will probably treat you like they treated drug seekers in the old world. 

A buddy of mine got accused of purposely shutting down his meal center after an earthquake. They were questioning his food seeking behavior and they took his sarcastic reply as a confession.

Which way now?”

He interrupted his story as we came to three rope bridges that spanned a large carven. Use the wrong one and you’ll find yourself in a pit with a Wait-a-While bush ( the plant that inspired Velcro) , at the bottom. Get stuck on that and waiting is exactly what you will be doing!

“The third one…. Really?” About your friend I mean?”

“ After the matches, I thought every obstacle might be negotiated at glacial speeds down here! But yeah his exact words were: 

“you’re right! I walked over a mile.. I could have just gotten my lunch. But I thought to heck with it! So, I decided to use my super powers to trigger an earthquake instead”

“They took that as a serious confession?”

They even asked him to sign it. Keeping quiet until you get a lawyer goes double now!

“ Good to know in case we get caught… That was the only obstacle.I’m not very creative and I figured the pit and Wait-a-While plants would be sufficient.

 Those bushes give me an idea. There’s some Scotch tape in the desk. You can use that to get a thumb print off of something I was touching: like the match book maybe. If you take the candle, I will be forced to wait down until you return. Then you can use the tape to get one of my trays open.

“Great idea. I’m JD, by the way,” he says as he turns back upstairs. 

Moments later, he is back with the thumb print, and forcing me to take out the trays and heating pouches. 

“ You know JD? I have never really believed in God, but now I hope that my grandma was right. Everyone who asks for God’s help gets it because I can’t think of anything else that might help with everything,” I comment as I put the trays on the basement table.