Here at Professional Moron, we don’t have much time for fussy eaters. Those sorts, typically despising vegetables, well… it makes our blood boil! Just eat the stuff, dammit!

Anyway, today’s human female needs assistance with her idiot boyfriend. Turns out he has a pretty restricted diet.

Hoops

Hiya. My boyfriend is called Derek. I reckon he has an eating disorder. You guys seem to blog about food a lot [Editor: She’s right! Check out our student-friendly pot noodle sandwich!] and do agony aunt stuff. Even if your advice is usually terrible. But I’m at a loss where else to turn…

Anyway, my boyfriend Derek only eats spaghetti hoops. Morning, noon and night. That’s it, other than the three pints of lager he drinks at night.

It’s his habit, yeah? He gets back from work (he sells mattresses for beds) and gets a tin of spaghetti hoops. He slops the lot into a pan and cooks them up. Then he cracks open a bevvy and spends the next batch of hours in front of the TV supping from the bevvy while having a few spaghetti hoops. It takes him about four hours to eat the tin of spaghetti hoops. And he usually finishes two other lagers before then.

We don’t talk much during that time (or ever). He just eats his hoops, burps really loudly and sometimes comments about the TV show he’s watching while hunched over his dinner and bevvies.

Then he goes to bed at 11pm and has chronic gas and agonising stomach cramps from about 1am through to 6am, which he blames on me for not cooking him proper dinners.

I says to him each night about 3am, “Derek, I offered to cook you meals through the last three months! And you told me to take a hike because none of them were spaghetti hoops based.” Well, he throws a wobbler at that. Last night he yelled “Slag!” and stormed off to sleep on the sofa. I found him in the morning curled up on the floor with a blanket, clutching a four-pack of spaghetti hoops.

Is this really the man I want to marry? Mother is hassling me to hook up with him (I’m 24, he’s 40) but he seems to be losing the plot.

He’s pale, his fingernails have all turned yellow and he’s exhausted a lot. I’ve heard his roars of agony during the night when he’s on the toilet. I’ve seen him stagger off shaking to the kitchen each morning to pour spaghetti hoops down his gob. I don’t think this diet is doing him any good!

I checked his online shopping history and he’s ordered 3,111 tins of spaghetti hoops since 2017. The 400g tin at 85p. That’s £2,643 on spaghetti hoops!

I interviewed Derek’s mother about it and she doesn’t seem to give much of a toss. “It’s his life!” is what she said. I told her of his screaming fits at night because of spaghetti hoops induced nightmares. And she just laughed, “That’s nothing, he wet the bed until he was 25!” And she roared with laughter again.

That night I asked Derek about the bed-wetting and he turned more pale than normal and had a, sort of, 1,000 yard stare about him. Sweat burst out of his forehead and he started a low-pitched shriek. That went on for many minutes. He didn’t shut up until I brought him a tin of spaghetti hoops, which he cradled lovingly while making weird cooing noises.

What’s wrong with the man?! I don’t want to marry that! Can you imagine our kids!? Spaghetti Hoops Jnr. and Lager Jnr. Trying to talk to other parents at PTA meetings with Derek dribbling on the floor. I’m not sure I can force that onto our community.

So I wrote this message after I confronted Derek about our relationship. I said, “Derek, we’ve been going out for three months now. I’m not sure marriage and kids are in our best interests. I hope you understand?”

He sat there with a strained look on his face, like he was wincing. Without a word he got up and went to the bathroom. He was in there for a good hour and I sat listening to all the usual noises. When he returned he went to the kitchen and got a cup of water and a banana from the fruit bowl.

I sat nervously watching him as he struggled to peel it. He was sweating furiously and grunting with effort. After 10 minutes he gave up and bit down on the top of the banana, chewing through the peel to get at the banana flesh.

He was breathing really heavily. Scared I said, “Derek… should I call for an ambulance?!” And he nodded his head violently. So, that’s where he is now. Getting his stomach pumped in Royal Bolton Hospital.

Can I do anything to get this man onto a normal diet? Yours, Lucy

Hi, Lucy! Try introducing him to our fantastic pot noodle sandwich, which is crammed full of essential nutrients (such as masses of salt).

Otherwise, send him off to a specialist spaghetti hoops withdrawal clinic, where nurses will hook him up to drips filled with baked beans.

Alternatively, get him a job at a spaghetti hoops manufacturing facility. There he can roam corridors, amble about machinery, and test the product—as nature intended.

You’ll have to also get a job there to keep an eye on him, of course, so wave goodbye to whatever career aspirations you had. Your life is all about tinned foodstuffs now.

Our recommendation is you marry him immediately and have many babies. We hoop you have a hoopy future together!