honor is not dead

i haven’t had any red meat in a while.  but sunday, i had the perfect opportunity.

currently my red meat situation is thus: zach entered the pact with me at sundance, but he fell out a while ago and paid me $100 for the delight of not having to deal with it anymore.  however, right as zach failed, chad entered, mostly because i challenged that he couldn’t do it (rather than for the reasons i am doing it, which he found compelling but not quite compelling enough).  and since then, in april, chad has been going strong and i have as well.

sunday i decided to get a  sandwich.  i showered and got ready and drove over to the town and country shopping center at el camino and embarcadero.  that’s the thing about california, even the yuppie strip malls sound exotic.  i wanted to go to the village cheese house, but it was closed on sundays (dumb!).  so i went over to the mayfield bakery & cafe and i went to their bakery section and i asked for sandwiches.  jen and i had been before, and they had ‘run out’ of sandwiches in the bakery section and asked us to go sit for a full meal, so i asked them if they still had any sandwiches.  the word choice was weird, because the lady there informed me that they served to-go premade sandwiches at the bar in the cafe so i should go over there.  i left the bakery section, wondering what she thought about my choice of using the word ‘still’, and went over to the cafe’s bar.

on a sunday, around 1pm, the mayfield cafe’s bar was disappointingly busy

i asked the bartender what sandwiches they had.  he told me chicken salad, paused, turned and opened the mini-fridge behind him, peeked into a sandwich, and said “and also turkey”.  i thought for a second about how i always eat turkey sandwiches and chicken salad sounded exotic, like where i was, and that i don’t know if i’ve ever really had a chicken salad sandwich, and predictably proclaimed that “i’ll have the chicken salad”.

as i got into my car, i noticed a strange smell, familiar yet unexpected.  as i pulled out of the town and country parking lot and on to embarcadero road, i peered in to my sandwich.  as i waited for the red light to change so i could turn on to el camino, i realized that yes, those were giant chunks of bacon, thickly cut, on my chicken salad sandwich.

the thoughts that went through my mind are as follows (roughly): “fuck!  maybe it’s turkey.  i’m in california, why would they give bacon without telling you?  wait, this is clearly regular bacon.  it smells too good.  no way its turkey.  ok, no one is home.  no one knows what i’m eating.  i could just get away with this.  no, that is not right.  ok well i’m not going back to change it and i’m not going to waste this $8.  well, wasting $8 is way better than wasting $100.  maybe i can pick out the bacon?  cmon, picking out bacon, what have you turned into?  ok, what’s the right thing to do here.  pick out the bacon.  just eat it.  go get a burrito no that gave you really bad heartburn when you did that yesterday you idiot.  ok pick out the bacon.  ok just eat it no one will ever know”

so i get home, cursing to myself that i bothered to ask what kind of cheese was peeking out (brie) when i got the sandwich but didn’t bother to explore further for bacon.  and wondering if i could really deal with not telling chad that i had broken the diet, or even with telling chad and breaking the diet and paying him $100.  and i got in my kitchen and i opened up the sandwich and looked at the slice of bacon, almost whole, staring back at me.  and i thought

“i don’t really even want to eat this bacon enough for the trouble”

and i picked out the bacon.  and i put it in a trash bag.  and then i ate a middling chicken salad sandwich, or at least a sandwich that i hope was middling because otherwise chicken salad might really, really suck.

7 thoughts on “honor is not dead”

  1. excellent work. i can’t tell you how many “close calls” i have had. the worst was when i was home with katie for her dad’s wedding. her dad’s wife made quiche for breakfast…and it not only looked good and smelled good but i still feel a need to try to make her family happy whenever possible, so i couldn’t pass it up…but it had bacon in it. and let me tell you, pulling bits of bacon out of a piece of quiche while you eat it is incredibly difficult. doing it while your girlfriend’s family mocks you for doing it is much much harder. but since the deal was only through the start of school and my first official school related event is the trip i am leaving for on saturday morning, we are nearing the end.

    we should talk about extending it, but i want to change the terms a bit. seeing as i used to eat a ton of meat, i think i can have a significant impact (as can most people) by just limiting myself to 1 or 2 servings a month. maybe we can extend the deal under those terms…

  2. what i’m willing to do, and what i think would be good, is if we just continued the deal but with beef only.

    are you arguing that the deal is over saturday morning, meaning when i visit CUT in las vegas on saturday night i am free and clear?

  3. By Saturday I will be successfully persuading you to share the Porterhouse for two with me. Jon could never help me finish that.

  4. 1) the deal is technically over when i board the plane at like 4 a.m. saturday morning. so i am saying saturday night you are in the clear.

    2) i recommend the following rules for the continuation:

    a) we are each limited to no more than 2 “resource intensive meat servings” per month.
    b) a serving is defined as the amount of “resource intensive meat” included in any piece of an ordered or prepared meal. this means that ordering a giant-ass steak at CUT is one serving, as is ordering a side of sausage with brunch. i know this makes things uneven, but i don’t think there is a better way to judge.
    c) “resource intensive meats” are any meats coming from a mammal, particularly beef, pork, and lamb.
    d) the only exception to the definition in part c is mammals that are intentionally hunted to thin their numbers. for example, deer in the u.s. are often hunted to thin herds and are not often raised for venison. therefore, eating deer meat, rather than being a resource intensive source of calories, is actually a good way to minimize the waste resulting from hunting.

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