As a rapidly-aging terminally-single white male, I have decided to extend myself a generous license to be increasingly concerned with how excited I get about very ‘single’ things. As with most epiphanous realisations, this was made apparent to me when faced with the rapidly-aging terminally-single white male’s greatest friend…
Campbell’s Condensed Soup for One…
There comes a point as a rapidly-aging terminally-single white male when you are required to visit the supermarket. This may be because you cannot read the menus in the local restaurants and are afraid of ordering balls. Or it may be because you’ve decided to try making some delicious hors d’ouvres to devour as you weep yourself to a lonely sleep at night. Either way, one thing is certainly going to happen…
You’ll walk around the supermarket a few times, stopping maybe once or twice to glance at the chilled meats and convince yourself you might make a quick ‘spag-bol’. You might trawl the fruit and vegetables section and fancy harking back to the vegetarian days by manufacturing a wee lasagne. But we both know you’re wasting your time…
Even above the bastardised reconstituted Anglo-pop being spewed from the tannoy, a low-pitched voice – perfectly tuned to your degenerating ear canals – emanates out over the din. You can fight it all you want, but those persuasive calls saying ‘eat me you social pariah’ and ‘you’re never lonely when I’m with you’ will eventually draw you over to the tinned food section…
In the United Kingdom, the canned soup section of a supermarket is like a ‘Shaun of the Dead’ style meeting point for spaced out zombified single men analysing salt contents in case their lives should some day become worth extending. However, in Hong Kong all single men work 22 hours to prevent themselves from facing up to their worthless existence with a piece of rope and a high building. Therefore, the gargantuan display of red and white pots of gold appears before you undisturbed and untarnished as if a beautiful and entrancing wonder of the natural world.
So many flavours. So much variety... So much excitement!...
There’s no point in resisting! This will be the high point in your week assuming you’ve already become too apathetic to masturbate. That’s why once you’ve calmed yourself down and made a sensible choice of soup, you’ll insist upon complimenting it with the perfect long-life ‘bread for one’ from the GM bakery section. Of course, you can look all you want but your choice will be motivated by that four word beacon to the rapidly-aging terminally-single white male…
Suitable for Home Freezing!...
With all this variety, it is important not to succumb to over-stimulation and sensory overload. It is important at this point also to calm yourself and prepare for the most incongruous and disappointing aspect of shopping in Hong Kong when compared with the UK. Back home, you’d walk up and down surveying the checkouts trying to make an informed choice. You’re not looking for the pretty or the delicately figured, just the girl who looks like she might offer up a few bantering quips or pass you an uncaring but – to you – meaningful ‘everything will work out alright in the end’ smile…
However, in Hong Kong you already know that the only expressions you can share in either of your languages are ‘Do you have a loyalty card?’ or ‘Do you need a bag?’. There will be no smile forthcoming and you will only be able to drag out the ‘loyalty club’ banter for one or two stumbling words of Cantonese before you retire humbled…
But take heart oh rapidly-aging terminally-single white male. When you return to the private bliss of your ‘pad’, slip back the clothes of your delicious red and white houseguest and survey the welcoming beauty of the fruits of the Earth contained within, you can be sure of one thing…
Soup for two just takes too long in the microwave anyway…
(This post does not reflect my thoughts and feelings towards my present situation' I refuse to believe I could ever become too apathetic to masturbate...)
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