I had the strangest craving for ramen this afternoon, and not even the really good kind you can only get in a noodle shop in northern Japan in the midst of a snowstorm. I was drooling for the kind of ramen you can only get in a brick off the shelf at your local big-box grocery store. Well, at your local convenience store, too. Maybe even your local gas station.

So on my lunch hour, which is really my lunch-three-quarters-of-an-hour, I walked up to the co-op to grab myself a brick and was very deeply saddened to find they didn’t sell them! What the hell, Willy Street Co-op? Maruchan ramen not organic enough for you? Don’t answer that.

But they did have some fancy-pants version of cup o’ ramen for just a buck and change, so I grabbed one of those and headed back to the office, dreaming of steaming hot ramen and drooling myself silly over it. Following the instructions carefully, I filled up the cup and nuked it until it was piping hot, daintily picked up the cup by the lip with three fingers and carried it ever so gingerly back to my desk where I pried the top off and blew across the bubbly surface, savoring the aromas.

Tasted like a dry synthetic kitchen sponge, just like I remember. And now that I’ve got that out of my system, I don’t have to do that for another twenty years or so.