No Meal Today

No meal today, my wife has gone away.

Yes, she has gone away, but only to visit our daughter who is working away from home. A break for me to laze around the house and be lazy. When hunger pangs strike, raid the refrigerator for leftovers pizza, burger, bags of potato chips from KFC and BigMac, packs of nasi lemak, fried rice, cookies and many others. There is always quite a collection, one can survive for at least two days just on the leftovers.

It wasn’t the hunger pang nor the urge to nibble something that drove me open the fridge door. Yes, the chips in the doggy bag look nice. It was light and on opening up, it was empty. So too were the rest of the doggy bags. Who could have removed the content from doggy bags, but yet the bags look like it is full of chips inside? The devil? My heart missed a beat. No, no such thing, not in modern times.

Maybe, I cook a packet of instant mee. There are stacks of it by flavours. Picking up a packet from the top, and horror of all horrors, it was again light and empty. The wrapping was intact, only empty. It must be the work of a devil. Who else can take out the content without tearing up the wrapping? My heart beat faster. Then a soft shrill like laughter could be heard, it grew louder and louder; and at the same time came nearer and nearer. Run, man run. Run for your life.

A sharp pain at my foot woke me up. Phew, it was only a dream. I have kicked the sofa armrest. The laughter was the end of transmission high pitch tone to wake up those who fell asleep watching the television. Good of the television station people to know that their programmes make people fall asleep.

“No meal today, my wife has gone away” is a play on words “No milk today, my love has gone away”. This is the opening sentence of the yesteryears hit song called "No Milk Today”. It was recorded by British pop band Herman's Hermits.

This was in days before smartphones and apps. One communicates with the milkman who delivered your milk your change of order for the day by leaving notes. Otherwise, he will leave your regular order of milk.