And I opened a new search, and I found a modest multi-purpose room at a local community center that rented for sixty-five dollars.

I want to describe what I bought, because the precision of it mattered to me, then and now.

I bought thirty plastic cups of instant noodle soup.

I bought a box of plastic forks.

I bought one cheap paper tablecloth.

And I paid the sixty-five dollars to reserve the room.

The total came to exactly one hundred and ninety-four dollars, which left me with six dollars in change.

I did not spend the six dollars.