Welcome to The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption! Subscribe to my RSS feed in a feed reader or by e-mail and you'll never miss any chapters from my year-long blog-as-a-book experiment on why we choose to consume, or not.
I ate four McDonald’s Paneer Salsa Wraps today.
No, I didn’t break down under the weight of my withdrawal symptoms and take a taxi to McDonald’s Colaba outlet and order myself four of them. In fact, I didn’t even have one of my usual craving attacks for them today.
My ex-girlfriend bought them for me, and I couldn’t not eat them.
For context, she’s the same ex-girlfriend who had asked me last year if I had thought about where I’ll keep her, before breaking up with me. As she pointed out to me after she read my post, it was only breakup number 7 out of our 171 breakups, and I was the one who initiated the last one.
For even more context, she’s also the girl who sweetly insisted on paying for our date on Juhu beach and forced a hundred rupee note in my shirt pocket.
As I have mentioned before, our relationship is a little complicated.
You see, both of us love each other, but our relationship suffers from several compatibility time bombs. Compatibility time bombs — if you haven’t read Are You the One for Me?: Knowing Who’s Right and Avoiding Who’s Wrong by Barbara De Angelis — are external factors outside your control that make it impossible for you to be happy together as a couple.
In case you are wondering, I’m aware that it is the type of book that most men would not (admit to) read, but Kanishka has excellent taste in books and when he recommends one, I read it.
But that’s not the point. The point is that we broke up for good a little while back, and she came over to my house today to pick up her things, and decided to bring four McDonald’s Paneer Salsa Wraps as a parting gift.
My first thought when I saw the wraps was that it was really sweet of her to buy me something I wanted so much. Surprisingly, my second thought was that I didn’t really want them anymore.
Here’s a more or less faithful transcript of the conversation that followed:-
Ex-Girlfriend: (bubbly) Look what I bought for you! McDonald’s Paneer Salsa Wraps!
Gaurav: (unsure) That’s really sweet of you, but you do know that I’m not allowed to eat them, don’t you?
Ex-Girlfriend: (still bubbly) Of course you are allowed to eat them! I checked your rules. Rule #9 says that you are allowed to get gifts.
Gaurav: (a little sad now) But rule #4 says that I’m not allowed to eat takeaways, not even when someone else is paying for it.
Ex-Girlfriend: (less bubbly now) But this is not a takeaway, this is a gift! What if I had bought you wine? You would have accepted that, wouldn’t you?
Gaurav: (a little more sad now) Yes, but wine is different.
Ex-Girlfriend: (a little sad herself now) But how is it different? I thought you’ll be happy that I bought you something you really wanted.
Gaurav: (even more sad now) I know, and I’m happy, but I can’t eat them.
Ex-Girlfriend: (like a little girl) Come on! You can eat them! Promise me you’ll eat them! Promise me, please! Promise me, now!
Gaurav: (laughing) Yes, I will! I will eat them, my little girl! Thank you. Thank you for everything.
So, after she had picked up her things, and left, I sat down near my favorite window, and ate the four McDonald’s Paneer Salsa Wraps she had bought for me as a parting gift.
Comments (2)
Interesting Experiment..
Guess you must love Vance Packard.
@Rani: Yes, Vance Packard’s ‘The Hidden Persuaders’ is very much on my reading list.
Trackback/Pingback (1)
[…] next three days, however, were absolute aloo paratha bliss. On Tuesday, my ex-girlfriend forced me to come home for lunch; she had made me aloo parathas, in an almost successful attempt at […]