Meats and their Men

(Pre-script: To get the high dollar value of this post, which you have invested deeply in, it must be read as the song, " Carry on, Wayward Son," by Kansas, plays. So go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I enjoy watching 4 year old Ethan eat a hot dog. It's a whole process whereby he first bites little rat holes throughout the bun, then when he has decimated it enough, he takes the hot dog out and starts biting little rat holes throughout it, too, from the middle first.

I say, "Wow, that's interesting."

He says, "I'm eating meat!" (exclamation point included, because exclamation points are included in every sentence that child says)

then, "Dad, can we eat meat again tonight?"

There is meat in our freezer, and Ethan knows this. Ethan's father (AKA "Derek") brought home a huge box of meat last week. Yes, you read that correctly, I said a huge box of meat, and Ethan helped sort and unload it all into the freezer. Some people keep an extra freezer in the garage for such things as extra meat. We do not. Our one kitchen freezer is now completely full, on the bottom half with enough steak to feed a hungry village, and on the top half with enough ice cream to feed a hungry village, or me, for a week. (Don't judge me, don't you judge me...) It is no great feat of intellectual prowess to figure out which half of the freezer belongs to which half of the marriage.

Derek bought the meat cheap from a meat vendor who sells to a catering company that is located near his cabinetry business. Folks, if I didn't make my point, let me say it this way: It's a lot of meat, enough meat to feed an Alaskan family the duration of the winter. And I know about meat in Alaska in winter, because my friend Brian told me, "When I lived in a commune in Alaska one winter, when you got hungry, you would go outside and cut a steak out of the Caribou that the guys in charge of hunting would leave hanging there, and you would take it in the house and cook it. Tastes kind of like steak"

That was last Friday. On Saturday, Ethan said, "Is today the day we are going to eat meat?!"

He kept asking after the meat all day long.

He said, "I'm a vegetarian, but tonight, I'm eating steak."

Way to stick to your convictions, kid. I am very proud.

-XOXO,