the Ramen Noodle

 

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As you will hear every now and then, I consider myself to be an “elite bachelor.” Now, stop it! Don’t laugh! I worked hard to ascend the meaningless ranks of bachelorhood to make it to this pristine position. My only disappointment at this level is that it just doesn’t pay what it should. In fact, it doesn’t pay at all. Unless you count the sympathy gifts that I receive from friends who are leaving town. But sometimes, I suspect their family conversation is something like, “Honey? What should we do with this junk? Goodwill won’t accept it.” “Oh, that’s easy. Give it to that bachelor. He’ll take anything!”

I hope that you don’t listen to this podcast just because you have a boring life. If so, the following may make your life even worse. Let’s consider some etymology. (Psst! That means “word history.”)

The word “bachelor” is originally from the Old French bacheler (say it like you’re throwing up, and it’ll sound French—“bacheler—gag”), which meant “knight bachelor.” The word was stolen by the English, who cleaned up the French vomit, and was used in reference to one belonging to the lowest stage of knighthood. (The word was used in such reference, not the vomit. I don’t know what they did with the vomit.) These lowly knights were either too poor or too young to achieve anything that great. Basically, these were the bottom-dwelling, scum-sucking slime of what was otherwise an esteemed ’hood o’ da k-night.

Although the word has been bounced around between cultures for hundreds of years, like a giant game of vocabularic volleyball, I think we can all agree that the meaning has not changed much.

Bachelors commonly can’t afford life, are too young to retire (despite their feelings that they deserve such pension), don’t know the difference between the oven and the dishwasher, tend to be messy, have a wardrobe consisting of usually only one basic color (resulting from washing everything together), and often congregate like rats with fellow bachelors in a cheap apartment (call a “bachelor pad”).

The average bachelor diet usually consists of 20% pizza, 20% fast food, 10% chips, 40% Mountain Dew, and the remaining 10% is usually indistinguishable, extraterrestrial, or something you would rather not know about and is probably not intended for human consumption. About 97.3% of most common bachelors are not married or at all involved with a girl. Maybe they resort to bachelorhood because they can’t get a girl. As if those five boxes of moldy pizza under the bed provide some comfort in their solace. But my personal theory is that they often can’t get a girl because there exists a quantum barrier between bachelorhood and marriage. Very few bachelors survive the crossing over. … Think about it.

I thank my lucky rubber duckies that I’ve made it through Bachelor Boot Camp. I properly separate my clothes for washing, which means no pink underwear; I shop for groceries based on price, not caffeine content or ability to double as a weapon; my couch doesn’t crunch from Doritos chips (who, by the way, do not sponsor this podcast, so don’t buy anything from them until they do sponsor me!); there is no pizza monster culturing under my bed; I can cook without using a microwave, a drive-through, or a phone to call the local pizza joint; and I have my own house, which contains more than bean bag furniture and scattered dirty laundry. This combination has earned me the irrelevant title of “Elite Bachelor.”

But as things go, Elite Bachelor is still at least one rank below Most-Eligible Bachelor. Sigh. I think it’s obvious that I’m quite hopeless when it’s the office astrophysicist who gets introduced as our company’s “Most-Eligible Bachelor.”

I wonder how hard it would be to try for another promotion. What would it take? Millions of dollars in the bank? Unrecognizably dressing up like a pirate? Highlighting my hair?

You may not believe me, but there actually was a time when girls were practically beating down my door to—Oh wait! That was when I fell asleep in the bathtub and my mom was calling through the door to remind me that it was bed time. Um … so that one doesn’t count.

But seriously now, I do remember random, unknown internet girls who would instant-message me, telling me how “hot” I was. Those were the days! Unfortunately for me, I was not the “guy in orange” from the dating website—or maybe that was unfortunate for them. Indeed, it was all a cyber mixup of world wide web proportions.

*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* Oh … hi, all of you iron-pumping, poor knights. No, no. I didn’t mean that! No, no. I didn’t mean that I’m better than you, I simply meant—wait. What are you doing. No! NO! Not the—

Hi. Are you still there? Yeah, I’m pretty beat up. But I like these little white pills they’re giving me. They taste kind of like ramen noodles! But … without the seasoning packets. Eew!