The sterling glint of the seasoning packet

Sitting at my desk all day, waiting for Celebrity Death Beeper to send me word of the latest in, well, dead celebrities, I've become accustomed to the day-to-day deterioration of my spirit, but today, the flesh is suffering as well. Thanks to a rope-a-dope of credit card debt, student loans, and the general assfuckery that is my rent, my meager income is spread pretty thin, not so much like spreading butter over too much bread, but more like spreading butter over ...I don't know, a continent. Fuck similes, I'm always broke.

Aaaaanyways, to make up for money hemorrhaged on a daily basis, I'm pretty good at reining in my food costs to a bare minimum, whether it be by taking advantage of Omaha Steaks' delicious discount barnyard animals, or by my daily lunch routine, which involves adding hot water to ramen bought in bulk. At 99 cents for six packages, there is no better deal in this world. If you had told six year-old Rubber that one day the tooth she was putting under her pillow would feed her for a week...well, Reaganomics being what they were, that wasn't such a hot deal in 1985, nor did the specifics of a market economy really bowl me over back then. But nowadays, it just tickles me pink.

When science allows for a menage a trois with Kraft Mac & Cheese, I will make you a very happy prepackaged dehydrated noodle.

The aforementioned spirit-deterioration pretty much ensures that lunch is taken at the same time every day, a predetermined time that divides the day into chunks designed to minimize the damage done to my soul, so I've become a bit of a fixture in the kitchen; I'd like to think the site of me hydrating my noodles is comforting to others, like the rising of the sun. Recently, a new man joined my workspace (around the same time that Hated New Guy departed for sunnier, and more importantly, other, shores), a middle-aged bald Asian man with a precarous grasp on the language, and a habit of being polite that makes even the least cynical of New Yorkers wary. After a month of ramen making and kitchen encounter, this exchange took place:

Bald Asian Man: You make noodles every day.
RB: Yep. They're good. And cheap.
BAM: They are bad for you.
RB: Probably. But they are cheap. And good.
BAM: I used to make in college all the time.
RB: Me too. They were so good. And cheap.

I'm not against a little stranger-on-stranger conversation, and I'd like to think that I got my point across to even the ESLest of people; money is indeed an object, and mostly, I just really like the taste of ramen. Every day, I look forward to eating them, and in my 20 years of eating them (the Mother's not exactly an epicurean), I have never grown tired of them. I'm like a goldfish, albeit one that meets 400% of its daily recommended sodium allowance.

8 g of Trinitrotoluene? I don't want to be a prude or anything...

Today, as I sat at my desk, mourning Red Buttons, BAM approached and offered me a small package of beef ramen, the hardcore Chinese kind that wouldn't be caught dead in packaging with a cartoon of Fu Manchu on it. He said that "it taste better" and I should try it. I thanked him profusely, not having been bought a meal in longer than I care to remember (at least not of the solid variety) and said I would try it.

As lunch hour approached, I took a look at the nutritional information, something I don't often do. 490 calories, 20 g of fat? I'm not a calorie counter by any means (side note- try the deep fried Cadbury Cream Egg, it's a little battered ball of heaven) , but that is some serious, serious shit there. This is three times the levels of my normal ramen. This is Big Mac level calories (side note- try the deep fried Big Mac, re: heaven). This is the kind of stuff that they give to West African children to put weight on their bones. This is so not getting eaten.

I don't want to hurt his feelings, so I can't eat my regular noodles today, but I am sure as hell not putting That Ramen in my body, not unless I can help myself to a steaming bowl of anti-That Ramen afterwards to cancel out the aftereffects. BAM doesn't appear to be leaving his desk anytime soon, and now that I know what fuels him, I don't want to get on his bad side. At this point, it's probably easiest for me to just sit here, waiting for his heart to give out. And so I will, starving, weakening, dying in body and soul until they release me on the Wendy's of the world.