It was a typical fall Wednesday: pouring outside, and somehow, even though it felt like I had been at school for ages, it was only 4th period. I had resigned myself to surviving yet another day of tedium, expecting no change from the day before or the day before that. My 4th period class was Sports Medicine 1, and in this class, I only really knew one other person: a girl I had gone to school with for years. Because of limited seating in the portables, she and I sat at a table with two other girls that neither her nor I had met before. Despite sitting together, none of us talked a whole lot about anything besides immediate classwork, and this was comfortable for us. Until one day, all barriers were shattered. On the fateful Wednesday, the girl I was friends with pulled out a bag of Cheez-Its. As someone with a long-standing obsession with the cracker, I, as any other hungry teenager would, asked if she could spare a few. The girl sitting next to me also asked if she could have a few Cheez-Its, and all of a sudden, her and I were talking all about the crackers! Sharing favorite flavors, comparing opinions, and subconsciously, getting to know each other and crossing the line between seatmates and friends. But of course, one newfound acquaintance was not enough for one day. The girl across from me at the table had wrinkled her nose in distaste the second my friend had whipped out the Cheez-Its. “I hate Cheez-Its,” she boldly declared. And in that instant, it was like our little table had known each other for months instead of mere days. As we heckled her for her apparent lapse in taste (I mean, seriously, who doesn’t like Cheez-Its? The answer is no one.), she fired responses right back. All in good fun, though, as we were all laughing mirthfully about the whole thing within seconds of her proclamation. As the days passed, I kept waiting for the awkward silence to begin again. For the walls to come back up between all of us. And yet, they never did. Somehow, an insignificant bag of cheesy crackers, a simple processed snack, managed to bring together four girls with different personalities, lives, pasts, and interests. Before that Wednesday, I had never believed in the so-called power of food. To me, food was just fuel, just something to consume quickly before moving onto the next seemingly more important challenge of the day. After that experience, though, it became clear to me that food is a common ground for all people, and just might be the bridge to connection between strangers.