"noodles mate"

“When a man's stomach is full it makes no difference whether he is rich or poor." Euripides (480-406 BC).

The most amount of money at one time that I have ever had is $2000. I'm poor and I have always been poor. Even with a full time job I'm poor. I don't even know how that works, and how all my friends who have similar jobs have extra money. I have all these back-up plans in my head and every now and then I have to act out on one.

One of these plans was, if I am ever so hungry with no prospect of food and I absolutely need to eat I would go into the supermarket, find something to eat, eat it as fast as I could and then deal with the consequences. The idea being at least I had to eat something.

3:30 am at the 24 hour supermarket across the road from a police station near my home probably wasn't the best time and place to execute my plan, but the fact that I couldn't sleep for the third night in a row because of hunger pains also helped this decision. I crawled out of bed, got dressed, deep breaths to gather my confidence and was on my way to execute the plan. When I go shopping on a normal occasion I look for the bargains, two for one deals and bargain bins are a great source of a cheap feed. But tonight I simply didn't have any money – none - and I was just going to eat something in-store - then try fuck off.

Cooked chooks $2.50 - it shouldn't have caught my eye because a cooked chicken is hardly incognito which this situation called for, but I went ahead and took one out of the hot oven and just started walking around eating it like a hand-full of fruit. I managed to devour quite a bit before security came – actually there wasn’t too much left of that chook – I was painfully hungry and I had a good 2 minutes start. I even had the wishbone in my pocket.

I dropped the chicken when they tackled me. I couldn't understand why they were so forceful towards me "it was $2:50 ya cunt - no need to be a cunt" karma came back as soon as we got up off the ground. Homeboy security guard stood directly on top of the half eaten chicken on the lino floor and somehow managed to become horizontal at about chest height then landed flat on his back, his head hitting the floor with a sickening sound and knocking himself out cold. I didn't struggle or anything stupid when the cops got there and they were nice enough to listen to me. I explained how i was starving and I had a "back up plan".

One of the police even said, "noodles mate, they’re much easier to steal, why did you try a cooked chicken?" My back up plan wasn't that uncommon the police man said in the interview. And they had their own back up plan for people in my situation (broke - no job - no welfare) I was forced to pay $2.50 to the supermarket and I was given an emergency Centerlink interview the next day which led to money which then led to a job and more comfortable life. I don't think this plan would work too often but getting caught eating a cooked chicken in the supermarket was a blessing in disguise for me.