THE WILD BACHELOR IN HIS LAIR

This one I blame on women. You know I'm single, right? A bachelor. An unattached man. A masculine person without a sensible female to guide him away from ill-advised choices. Or instruct him in detail on the proper mode of behaviour and what a right-thinking well-adjusted social being should not do. Lectures to train the savage beast.

A fairly typical individual of the testosteronic persuasion.

Thick cut oxford marmalade. Deli-sliced Virginia ham. And a gâteau à la purée de marron, from the AA bakery. All on one plate. Cake is a bread-like substance, with air-pockets and a certain spongy softness, made from wheat. It is richer than bread, utilizing such things as butter, eggs, and cream. Pureed chestnut is, karmically speaking, a relative of both peanut butter and Indonesian saté sauce.
So it requires sandwich meat.

Ham, having both a moistness that bready things lack, as well as a sweetness appropriate to cake, is perfect.
Quod erat demonstrandum.


The thick-cut marmalade was pure inspiration. Brilliant.


Why do I blame women for this combo?

Well, because a man in a relationship is ten times more likely to eat pizza instead. Pizza is butch and masculine, and a way of reasserting our machismo after diluting it for several hours in the presence of Tinkerbell and Hello Kitty. Cake is frou-frou; very wussy.

Got any anchovies?

As a completely unattached mature single man I have nothing to prove. Snarfing down cake in private late at night does not make me any less masculine, but is in fact a liberty which the fully-realized male in a stable relationship will never have.

There he'll be, at the icebox at two in the morning, with a glass of milk, speculatively opening up that oh so tempting cake box, when a voice will come floating in from elsewhere. It is a harsh and strident voice -- because it is burning with envy that ANYONE can eat cake without it going directly to the thundrous thighs -- insisting that he stop doing that, it's late, he has to get up early, they both do, and fergawdsakes DON'T litter crumbs in the bed!

Men eating pizza late at night are cute. Doing so is expected of them.
Men eating cake, however, are a source of envy, resentment, jealous rage, hateful rhetoric, and existential despair.

Ladies, it did not go to my thighs.
I possess a male metabolism.
Go ahead; be jealous.
I am single.


Instead of milk, I should have had it with strong coffee. But it would have been cruel to turn on the coffee maker at that hour; the smell would have woken up my apartment mate.

I'm not that mean.

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