It’s a bank holiday tomorrow and I’ve just got off the phone with the Dark Witch of Project Fear. Not for the first time, my mum has convinced me all the shops will be shut tomorrow and that it’s the only time when everyone agrees gig workers are employees. I decide to go to the shop the next time I leave the flat.

But it gets to 4.30pm and M&S is going to shut in half an hour so I have to force myself out for a single purpose trip.

When I used to go into a supermarket, and I was hungry, I would salivate at almost everything, often taking a second glance at the 10kg bags of basmati rice. But since I started eating comfort food with disposable cutlery everyday I’ve become numb to raw ingredients. My solution is to choose only food I really like and whose cooking creates as little washing up as possible.

I whizz around the supermarket, scan on the self checkout, load my M&S Xmas edition bag for life, refuse to sign up to the loyalty card and pay.

By the time I’ve got home 5 minutes later I’ve forgotten what I’ve bought. I unload my stocking and discover Santa has left me a lump of coal:

• Sirloin steak
• Watermelon chunks
• Avocado
• Pak choi (I can already hear my mum’s reaction “ooo pak choi”)
• Strawberry and banana smoothie
• Milk chocolate rounds

I bin the bag for life. There must be a hole in it because I spent £22.

I take a moment to reflect on what’s in front of me. I don’t know what it is but it’s not a meal.
I ask my neighbour to come over to witness a signature. I sign the receipt and they attest there’s no meal there.

I sleep well that night in my fully stocked nuclear bunker.

I wake up on the bank holiday Monday at 10am and boil the kettle to make a coffee. It’s at boiling point I realise I forgot to buy milk yesterday. I put on a t-shirt and trackies combo that hasn’t been washed for two weeks and nip down to M&S to buy milk. I get back and have to reboil the kettle. I then make my coffee with a touch more milk than I usually would because I’ve got a full tank so can treat myself. I drink my coffee leisurely as I watch YouTube videos of football pundits arguing with each other.

I realise I’ve been here too long because the auto-play has taken me to squabbles between Serbian pundits. Obviously I don’t speak Serbian, but surprisingly I am able to derive some enjoyment purely from their body language and facial expressions.
It’s 12pm and I’m hungry so start to cook.

I decide the one utensil to be washed up today will be a 12 year old Jamie Oliver griddle pan which has been passed down through everyone in the family before retiring in my dusty cupboard. It will likely stay with me for some time because I’m the youngest in the family who’s able to cook steak (my son is both younger than the pan and going through a vegetarian phase).
I cook the steak rare and while it rests I use its juices to fry the pak choi. Given how little I cook I surprise myself with how well the steak is cooked (“cooked to a high standard” not “cooked well done”).
The meal is ready. I pour a pint of strawberry and banana smoothie, which is far too much and it’s nearly emptied the bottle of liquid gold in one sitting.

Instead of turning on the TV while I eat, I put the chocolate rounds on the table and read the packet.
On one side it says “More chocolate than biscuit!”. I get an instant dopamine hit. But then I try to understand what its purpose is, why does it need to say that?
Surely that means it’s a chocolate not a biscuit?
But it’s in the biscuit aisle. Why?
There are plenty of chocolates with biscuit/wafer inside in the chocolate section, many with more biscuit than the rounds.
Then it clicks. It’s a loophole to overeat. If you put the rounds in the chocolate aisle, they’re a chocolate so you’re only allowed two after dinner guilt free. But if they’re a biscuit, you’re allowed three after dinner with no additional mental charge.
It’s taken me so long to work this out that I’ve finished my dinner and eaten 5 “biscuits”.

Later that afternoon I decide to walk down to my dry cleaners. The proprietor is a very tough negotiator (not as tough as the bird shit stain on a suit I once gave him though) and never lets me have my clothes back within 5 days without paying the “priority” price.
But he slipped up and I have him. He put the collection date for two pairs of trousers as today! No chance he’ll be open. I buy today’s newspaper and head down there to take a picture with the shop closed. Leverage for next time when I’ll take the whole of the borough’s laundry to him with a court order for a 48 hour turnaround.

I have to walk past M&S on my way. As I do I turn to look at the ghost store and feel like I’ve been punched in the gut… It’s open! And packed full of relieved 25-35 year olds.
I crumble to the floor.
I drag myself on my hands and knees a quarter mile further to the dry cleaners, while composing a passive aggressive text to my mum in my head.
Lying on the pavement exhausted, I look up and see an immaculately pressed suit before feeling a polished leather boot kick me in the kidneys… The dry cleaners is open!