Hmmm? Isn't it? Banana?

Pre packed dinner. Now with added use of the word "Fuck"

Pick up the packet. Turn it over and read the instructions:

"Remove outer packaging and film lid, place in a baking tray (Why? You think to yourself) and cook in a pre-heated oven for 25 minutes"

''Remove" the film lid? They say it like you gaily flick it over your shoulder with no more effort than lifting a brides veil (Or her nightie, come to think of it). I mean, are they fucking joking? It has been formed with the strongest plastic known to man, and welded firmly to the tin-foil base with more tenacity than america hanging on to the notion that they are the greatest country on the earth.

For fucks sake . The instructions should be more like:

1: Remove outer packaging.

2: Take a deep breath.

3: Try and grip infinitesimally small edge of plastic (that we previously lubricated with Teflon's slippier, nastier brother) crumpling edge of foil container into an odd shape. Try and reshape container whilst grinding teeth. Repeat for 3 minutes at each of the corners until you have achieved precisely fuck....all.

4: Next press your incredibly sharp and pointy stainless steel knife with a diamond/granite/kryptonite coated blade against the poxy plastic with all your might. Increase the force until you are standing on the kitchen side jumping up and down on top of the handle. Wait until the force is so great that the knife disappears though the entire packaging, puncturing the foil tray underneath, allowing the sauce to spill out, and the knife scratch your kitchen top. Now you know why you have to put a perfectly serviceable tin foil tray into a baking tray when you cook it.

5: Stick your fingers into the slit you have created and pull the film lid gently open nearly all the way. At the end, when all you have left is the seal along one edge, pull the film lid away from the tray. Now pull a bit harder. Now maybe just a bit harder - that's it, enough that the tray is actually off the worktop - until the film finally gives way. Watch helplessly, and in slow motion, as the foil container flips over and deposits the contents on the side, along with the sauce that hadn't previously pissed out when you stabbed it earlier. Attempt to stop it just after the last minute by smashing your hand onto the foil container in one swift motion, rendering it crushed flat.

6: Fume. Wipe the remnants of sauce from your face and up your nose. Grip your fists until they shake and your face goes red. Swear. First quietly, and under your breath. Then luxuriously at the top of your voice. Throw your face to the ceiling and hold forth with all the gutter terms you have ever known with a lusty bellow. It's always best, I've found, to finish these moments off with a surprisingly delicate and drawn out "Ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff-uck". Hiss it with all the venom saved up from every one of those times at school you were made a fool of or bullied. Now is the moment that those times were given to you for. So you are truly able to vent utter bile and hatred at inanimate objects.

7: Very deliberately and with great control, straighten the foil container as best you can. Flip the remains of your un-cooked dinner into the now mangled, leaky and pretty much second hand, mess you have left.

8: Fight the urge to get the take-away menu out.

9: Place tray in oven and go and open a bottle of wine.

10: Feign surprise when, at the end of the cooking time (and indeed for a surprising number of minutes before) the 'meal' is overcooked, and it's looks bear precisely NO resemblance to the picture on the top of the packaging.

11: Eat. And pretend you are enjoying it. And also that you will either not buy one of these again, or that if you do, you will open it properly. Yeah, right.

Bon appetit, kids.

posted by Brock @ Friday, December 17, 2004