clarifications

So I didn't eat meat until I was 10 or so, at which point I did whatever I could to sneakily eat meat. At this point my mom had decided that I had made my 4-year old choice and I was going to live with it, but finally after enough persuasion and fits had been thrown she backed off.
     Jump 11 years later. Working at GameStop I'm getting Cold Cut Combo's from Subway almost every day and eating them out in my car because I hate the fucking mall. Sometimes I switch this up with Steak Escape because that's just good shit. Good terrible shit, but the words "good" and "shit" are still standing out. There's a show on MTV2 that was still on last I checked called Wonder Showzen. This show actually started off as being called Kid's Show. A pilot was made a few years back and passed between the cable networks but considered way too offensive to get the go ahead. I downloaded it and watched it and in general it's funny as hell. One of the segments is kids narrating a trip to the meat factory, complete with jarring images of skinned pigs and shots remniscient of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in The Wall video. There's this little basic whistling tune in the background to make the whole thing feel like a Mr. Roger's segment. Well this fucking song gets stuck in my head because the show is hilarious. And one day while I'm sitting out in my car eating my Subway listening to whatever the hell I'm listening to this whistling song jumps into my head. Followed by the skit. As I'm eating ham and turkey and shit all of a sudden all I can picture are these hanging dead pigs. I try to push it from memory and finish my sub, and I almost do but I find right before I do I'm not hungry anymore.
     A couple of days later the same thing happens. Only this time I'm just picturing a fucking cheese slicer going up against these fucking pigs and little strips of subway ham being the end result. Fine, I think. Fuck it. I pull the meat off my sub and finish it. Repeat every so often until it's just ritual to yank the meat off of my sub halfway through. Finally I get irritated enough at wasting money on what is equivalently a vegetarian sub that I just start buying those. Eventually I give up on the deli meats.
    So in phone conversation with my mom I kind of mention what's going on and how irritating it is. She thinks it's hilarious. She points out that she quit eating meat at the exact same age that I'm at and how she went through the exact same problem that I'm having now. She taunts me and says that it's just going to get worse and I'm doomed. I tell her fuck vegetarians, or the equivalent, and commit myself to eating meat. I move into Brian's. We cook out. The burgers are fantastic. I can't stomache looking at the pre-cooked meat and every bite I take I have to talk myself through in my mind.
     Fuck.
     So by this point I'm down to grilled burgers and chicken sandwiches. I'm eating at McDonalds all the time and getting anything chicken from them. I think to myself thank god the chicken will never go.
     I love the chicken.
     The chicken is untouchable.
     I start picturing chicken thighs and human thighs concurrently. The resemblence between the two in my mind is uncanny. I cannot believe how miniscule the difference is between featherless chicken legs and people legs. I could be eating people legs right now for all I know.
     I can no longer eat chicken.
     Me and Brian go to BBC's on a Wednesday night when they have $1.50 Burgers and Fries. I'm still eating home grilled burgers by this point and I'm hungry and want beer too. It is the most difficult thing I ever eaten. I manage to get it down by following every bite with beer, nullifying the meat taste. I congratulate myself in my head when I finish. Four hours later I'm throwing up outside of Jay's apartment after not having consumed a terrible amount of alcohol. I know why this is.
     I cave in and buy Boca Chicken and Burgers. We grill out. I've had Boca before. I hated it then. I thought it was one of the worst things I ever ate. This time, after consisting on nothing but vegetarian subs, it doesn't taste so bad. In fact with the right amount of Ketchup (2 parts) and Mustard (1 part) and with Salt (just a bit) and Cheese (3 thin slices with a little ripped slice to cover the rest) it doesn't taste so bad. It's almost good. I consider having burgers one last time when Mike and Maya come over with the Foreman skillet. It's unfathomable. Maya cooks the burgers and all I can smell is innards and decay. I hate it when my parents are right, even now. I almost can't eat my boca backups because of the thick stench of muscle and veins, blood and fat and grease. It overpowers my reasoning and the knowledge that I'm eating processed plants doesn't change the fact that the taste of my food is still supposed to resemble that of a creature that can walk around and shit and have sex and sleep and feel pain and elation and frustration and (I assume) self pity.

     I cannot stand people who try to force their practices on others, so don't misconstrue this as one of those sad ramblings by fucking vegans where they pull up actual pictures of eyeless baby chickens being deep fried live or something. I'm just trying to give a better description of what happened after my failure of being able to deliver said description last night and several other times over the past weeks- months even. I understand it is natural predatory nature to hunt, kill and chew. That's fine. I can still even eat Fish so it would be very hypocritical for me to have even the slightest disdain towards those who do eat meat. But the fact remains that my mind has with force made me take note that we, as Logical Evolved Man, still don't hesitate at the drive to find something hopping around and chew on it. We can get the protein from other places. It seems almost redundant to have this reliance on eating things composed of essentially the same tools for movement, thought process, breathing, reproduction and so on as we are. It's definitely a moral thing but it's not a concern for the life of the animal in question as much as it is the broader question of what gives us the claim to superiority?

 I had to help customers mid-post here so I don't have time to re-read this and see if it's bullshit (read: par) or not (read: pipe dream). And since I don't work this weekend I guess it'll stand as is until Monday. Come Monday I'll re-read this while chewing on a delicious 1/4 Pounder with Cheese and some Chicken Soup, and then we'll see where it stands.