We renewed our membership at Marukai this weekend, one of the incentives for which, if not the only, was the 10%-off coupon, so I thought I’d use it towards an otherwise pricey carton of カレーうどん since the economy apparently hasn’t spared the imported cup noodle market, either, almost doubling the regular 98¢ 赤いきつね sale price. But the Nissin was nowhere on the shelves; what struck me as odder, no curry-flavored varieties were to be found, even among the “instant” packages. It dawned upon me that I had noticed the same scarcity, regardless of make and country of origin, in the counterpart section twice its size at wildly popular Korean Zion Market (whose name, along with Canaan Chinese restaurant, isn’t kidding). So you know me, it was conspiracy time: I imagined a coalition of the sauce makers (S&B, House, etc.) pricing out the stuff in other more accessible forms such as these, or perhaps it goes even deeper, the powers that be slowly doing away with foods with potential health benefits which threaten their status quo. I’m reminded, as I often am, of that exchange in The Hitchhiker’s Guide which I always found the most mysterious—and a little frightening—
ARTHUR: You know all this explains a lot of things. All through my life I’ve had this strange, unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world… and no one would tell me what it was.
SLARTIBARTFAST: No, that’s just perfectly normal paranoia, everyone in the universe has that.
ARTHUR: Well perhaps it means that somewhere, outside –
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