A woman with a clipboard emerged from the shadows of the aisles. "You Bernie’s guy?"

He spent every cent of his savings that afternoon. He loaded the car until the rear bumper nearly scraped the pavement. He drove home with a grin, envisioning his basement transformed into a fortress.

Elias was a man of modest means and high anxieties. He didn't want a yacht or a sports car; he wanted a basement filled with enough calories to survive a decade of silence. But survival, he’d quickly learned, was expensive. A single pouch of beef stroganoff at the local outdoor supply store cost as much as a fancy steak dinner at a restaurant he could never afford. "Looking for the long-haul stuff?"

"I'm looking for the cheapest calories you've got," Elias said, his voice echoing.

Bernie chuckled. "It’s overstock, son. Test batches. Mislabeled cans. The food is fine; the marketing just failed."