Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Soilent orange is made of...

Today was trick or night in the neighborhood of the Timothy House. We like to be good neighbors, so we pass out candy every year and serve people hot dogs, eat some for dinner ourselves, and have cider or hot chocolate. My coworkers, Kevin and Anne, were feeling particularly generous this year and dug a sack of "hot dog sauce" out of the freezer. We had probably 50 lbs, or several bags of it donated a couple months ago and haven't know what to use for until today. I would estimate that one frozen sack of hot dog sauce yields one a half gallons of finished sauce. When I first saw it on the stove top, bubbling in its cauldron, I said, "That looks like rendering lard or something." Then Kevin said something to Anne like, "Add more water," and I thought, That can't be right. You don't "add more water" to something like chili. Then Kevin stirred the cauldron, and I said, "Oh. This is meat oatmeal. This is oatmeal made out of meat." Kevin proceeded to explain that I wasn't too far off base, as the first 2 ingredients were "beef hearts, textured vegetable protein." Anne ate a spoonful of it straight with the promise of a peppermint patty later. I was disgusted. "Anne, you got a raw deal," I said.

But, if you know me well, then you know that I'm quite stupid. You probably know that I don't learn well from other's mistakes. If you know me well, I don't have to tell you that I ate an enormous hot dog with a ladle of bright orange meat oatmeal on top. But I'll tell you any way. I ate the orange beef heart oatmeal. I ate the hell out of it.

It didn't "sit well," but it didn't poison me either.

I have this theory.

Everyone has, as a part of their intense, ingrained survival instinct, and ability to consume anything that resembles food that does not smell rancid. Some people, even when they are not starving to death are capable of shutting down their higher brain functioning and only running on survival instinct. I believe this is the key to winning something like, say, a hot dog eating contest. Shut down most of your brain, and channel completely the God given ability that every human has to think, This dead zebra ass is my only hope of survival. I must eat this carcass if I want to have energy to hunt meat for my starving family for the next week. You go to that place in your mind, and maybe you eat 30 hot dogs in 5 minutes. Or maybe you eat orange meat oatmeal out of curiosity.

1 comment:

julia said...

A picture would have been nice.