Virgin Blue serves up the suckiest sangers this side of the now defunct Ansett Airlines. Oh yes, I once received a Smoked Salmon with Cream Cheese roll from them made to look like a hot dog or one of those long, chantilly cream doughnutty things you can get. It was, how can I say, foul.

Virgin Blue, though not that bad, have their blissfully and somewhat erotically titled ‘Ham & Beef Combo’. Usually I feel compelled to grab the sick bag and purge when one is within twenty feet of me but today I didn’t. I felt a certain specialness about this thing. Note: if you do ever throw up in a sick bag, notice that the bag is usually a self-addressed envelope to a photo development company. Hold onto the bag, seal it and mail it to ‘em. That’s one holiday snapshot they’ll love and appreciate.

This time the container that holds the sandwich is beckoning me to spin it around and look at the ingredients. Normally I don’t bother but I did. There were a lot of additives.

102 - Tartrazine ie. Yellow

150 - Plain Caramel ie Brown

150c - Ammonia Caramel ie Another Brown

250 - Sodium Nitrite ie Preservative Stuff

260 - Acetic Acid ie More Preservative Stuff

282 - Calcium Propionate ie Yet More Preservative Stuff

316 - Sodium Erythorbate ie Antioxidant

325 - Sodium Lactate ie Gelling Agent

407 - Carrageenan ie A Humdinger - it’s a Thickener, A Stabiliser, A Gelling Agent and an Emulsifier. 407 I love you.

412 - Guar Gum ie Thickener - Hey didn’t 407 cover this ground?

415 - Xanthan Gum ie Thickener and Emulsifier. I’ve always favoured Xanthum over Guar mainly cos of its dual properties.

451 - Sodium tripolyphosphate ie An Emulsifier - clearly dipolyphosphates aren’t good enough so lets go in all guns blazing with yer tripolys.

452 - Sodium polyphosphates ie Another Emulsifier - shit oh dear, surely 451 is good. Though 452 sounds better cos it’s ONE more.

471 - Mono-&-di-glycerides of fatty acids ie I guess some kind of fatty acid thing,

481 - Sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate ie Something with salt in it, possibly something else. These high numbers are tough to figure out.

621 - Monosodium glutamate (MSG) ie Flavour Enhancer ie what the world has been saying the Chinese have been using in their foods that’s killing whitey one step at a time, but no, whitey’s using it on themselves. The charlatans.

1412 - Distarch phosphate ie A Stabiliser and Thickening agent and to be honest I kinda lose interest in additives above the 800 mark.

So what does this all mean? Well, it is a disgusting prospect that one tiny little sandwich, insignificant in everything except it price and blandness would be filled with things with such long names that Scrabble players would moisten themselves in anticipation. However, I felt a gentle calm. This may have been for the small muscle relaxant I took shortly before getting on the plane but I had faith in the sandwich.

Given the sheer number of additives, 17 for those who don’t have arithmetic in their eyes that can’t automatically deduct double spacing, it was calling me to count. With all these numerals if anything needed to be subject to the precise science of numerology and digital summation then this was the item.

I added together the numerals within the additive. So Sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate is additive 481. So, 4 + 8 + 1 = 13. Then add the 1 to 3 to leave you with the base numeral for that additive. In this case 4.

Now with 17 numbers left, one for each additive, I would add them all together, break it down, add together and break it down until I had one number left. That number is, *drum-roll*, wait for it, the number is 3.

As I suspected. In Christian numerology is number 3 signifies:

‘Divine Perfection’

The sandwich was touched by God. Deified. Forget tomatoes and Cheerios that contain scripture. This is the real deal. Though the flight was mighty turbulent I knew I was touching down safely to fulfil my quest.

The ebay cometh.