For the past three years at Brown, I have been at the whim of the campus meats. I salivated over egg and bacon sandwiches at the Blue Room, cried out in jubilation when the Ratty had chorizo sausages for breakfast, slurped strips of Ivy Room gyro meat down my gullet, and every fateful Friday I scarfed down about 7 or 8 chicken tenders as honey mustard dripped down my fingers.
Until I went off meal plan. Eating meat became a pain, because I was scared of undercooking something and dying of salmonella on the floor of Young O 4. Meat was a treat (hey!) that came in the form of pre-cooked sausages and take out.
Then came this most recent and fateful summer, where my environmentally-conscious sister became vegan and espoused wisdom about the harms the meat and dairy industry incurs on our planet. I’m sorry to say, it deeply resonated with me. I decided I would work my way down from omnivore, to cutting out red meat, to pescatarianism, to hopefully, eventually, in a lifetime, vegetarianism. I had a new lover and his name was nutrient-enriched organic tofu. We’re very happy together.
Ah, but meat, ever fickle mistress that she is, continues to tempt me, haunt me. I’ll sit in some corner with my dinner, a bowl of toasted chickpeas, while her seductive bacon form beckons me with a sizzle. Sssssssss.
She comes to me when I’m at my weakest.
Before my four-hour long MCM screenings when I’m trying to enjoy a new suitor –a fresh tuna and shrimp poke bowl– she’ll be there in the form of Andrew’s pepperoni pizza, and I’ll almost let her greasy wiles get to me. I hear her fateful sizzle every night. Sssssss. How can I free myself from her firm grasp?
I did cave once, but only to celebrate chicken finger Friday, which is a national holiday. Okay, I also did get a Spicy With one time and it tasted of guilt and self-loathing and a thousand baby chicks crying. In the background, I heard the fateful sizzle ‘Ssssssssss.’
But my mistress does not let me live, still! I eat my hummus and fry my tofu, thinking about the positive change that results from a plant-based diet, yet still I hear she waits for me. Ssssssssss.
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