Pork…and other forbidden fruits

Some days I feel like eating pork. You know, a delicious slice or two of bacon, or maple and sage sausage.  Maybe even a thick juicy pork chop.

But then, I remember I will probably die if I eat pork. No, I am not Kosher or whatever the Muslim version of Kosher is. I am just allergic to pork. While it probably won’t kill me, it will make me wish I was dead. And the smells emanating from my body after ingesting it will likely make anyone within fifty feet of me think I am dead and just haven’t realized I am decomposing.

It has probably always been that way for me, even though I loved bacon and ham as a kid and didn’t know it was slowly killing me. I ate it all the time. Bacon, pork chops, beans and ham, pork sausage. I should have guessed early on when my mother always complained about how rude I was for passing gas as much as I did. But hey, she kept feeding me the poison!

It wasn’t until my appendix was taken out that I realized all the intestinal issues I had as a kid was because I was allergic to pork. The first time I ate pork after recovering from surgery my wife had made a really delicious Korean spicy pork bacon dish that I always loved before. I endured the most violent cramps you can imagine. PMS on steroids for men. I thought my appendix had come back into my body like Freddy Krueger returning from Hell. It nearly put me back in the hospital.

I don’t know if anyone else has ever experienced that kind of symptom from pork after an appendectomy. It was a real shock to me. If it is a regular medical occurrence I have yet to meet the rest of the victims. When I mention it to other people they are quite surprised to hear that. Except of course for my Jewish friends who just say “Of course, the prohibition of pork wouldn’t be in the Torah if there weren’t truth behind it.”

Now I do still eat other non-Kosher foods. Shell fish like shrimp and lobster and scallops and catfish and octopus and so on. But I will say this, I do not enjoy them as much as I used to. I don’t know what it is, but all of that kind of food just…I don’t know…tastes funny. And it makes my burps taste funny too. Funny in a bad sort of way.

So, what does my allergy to pig flesh and recent aversion to shellfish and bottom feeders have to do with my books or politics or news or anything I normally bring up?

Well… I’m not sure. Except that sometimes the thing we think we may be naturally drawn to, the thing we are fed all of our lives under the guise of normal food by our parents and even our spouses may not always be what we are actually meant to consume.

Maybe I need to reconsider my career as an IT Specialist. After all, when I am in the office I regularly spend a good portion of my work day sneezing and blowing my nose…just like an allergic reaction.

Hmmm. Perhaps I should just jump on over to what seems more natural to me.  Writing and telling stories and acting like a silly person on my talk show don’t give me allergic reactions.

Something to ponder.

If what you do makes you fart like a brute beast, or it if makes you sneeze like hyper-allergenic cat groomer maybe you should reconsider your path.

Just thinking out loud here.

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