That Special Something

You know that deep-down feeling that starts in the pit of your stomach, goes up through the muck, wraps itself around and through the heart tightly and squeezes the muscle to let you know that you’re in love?  The feeling of your breath catching in your lungs, that little flutter that puts things in perspective?  You know, it’s that same good feeling you get from sitting around in a cold house all day with numbing bare feet cause you’re too frugal to turn on the heat and then you finally decide to put on some socks and house shoes and the world warms up.

Well that’s how it was in my life when I first discovered the food custom made and created for royalty.  I started eating it many, many years ago, back when I was just a sapling of a lad, likely around the age of ten or eleven or so.  I’m pretty sure my step-brother introduced it to our family.  And I’ve been in love ever since.  Of course I’m talking about Ramen Noodles.

Yes, friends, there is no food that can compare to the wonder that is Ramen.  It’s cheap.  It’s filling.  It’s tasty, with variety.  It’s easy.  It’s quick.  It’s comparatively not that unhealthy.  It’s completely customizable.  The pluses (Is that how you spell pluses?  Is it plusses?  Spell-check says they’re both correct, but Google offers no definition of either…) of this food are astronomical.  The applications practically endless.

“Shazam, I just accidentally sawed off my hand.”  No problem.  Warm up some noodles (better keep ‘em plain and not add the seasoning) and cover the bleeding stump.  You’ll find the hand restored in no time.  “Help, I can’t figure out the correct pattern in solving this 20,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.”  That’s okay, just crunch up a bunch of uncooked noodles and pour them into the pile of pieces and voila, it’ll solve itself.  Yes, friends, I offer to you that Ramen noodles are possibly the best food of all time.

Many a day I take my lunch at home, where I keep enough noodles stockpiled to endure the forthcoming zombie apocalypse, and I enjoy a piping hot bowl of Ramen.  My personal favorite flavor is Picante Chicken, followed by Oriental.  All the rest battle it out for third.  My cooking method, you ask?  Well, I lay the bag on the counter, go all crazy kung-fu chopping on it (carefully, I don’t want to bust the bag), pick up the bag and crush the rest of the noodles with my hands, pour contents into a bowl, cook in microwave for 3 minutes, DING DING DING, remove from microwave (carefully, I don’t to burn my hands), stir in seasoning packet, and sprinkle a metric tonne of black pepper on last.  The final step is utensil selection.  Typically I eat with a fork, but occasionally I eat with Doritos.  The bold, crunchy chips are perfectly designed to function as a spoon with which you can dig out your sustenance.  If I use a fork, I just crunch up the chips and sprinkle them in the bowl for that extra crunch factor.  (See, I told you they were customizable.)

As much as you’d like to believe, I am totally serious.  I really do love Ramen noodles.  I mean, I’m not like weirdly obsessed with them or anything.  I don’t have a Ramen producing factory in my garage.  I don’t have anime posters of Ramen monsters.  I don’t keep Ramen stuffed teddy bears.  But I do enjoy the food.  I suppose I always will.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:  14,361
Drinking:  Unsweet tea with Sweet & Low
Working On:  Erosion Control Plans
Oblivion Play Time Total:  ~10 hrs
Last Argument of Kings remaining:  ~100 pages
War?  What is good for?:  Absolutely nothing
Current genre:  Shuffle folk & worship