The suspicious looks, the sharp intakes of breath whenever I got down to work. The feeling that things weren’t quite right between us. I knew that, deep down, sooner or later I’d be let go. Given the heave-ho. The big hoof.
I still feel ambivalent about it. I didn’t dislike it but it wasn’t something I went overboard over either. What can I say? For a time, due to familial constraints it was a necessity, but my ambitions have always lain elsewhere anyway.
It affects my wife and my children, of course. It’s quite a major change. It literally affects what food we can now put onto the dining table; how we eat. If we eat even.
But I’m fine with it. Honestly. Maybe I’m still in shock. The reality of the situation hasn’t yet kicked in.
*sigh*
I hardly dare say the words.
Bacon intolerant.
It kind of rolls off the tongue but still seems an odd concept. Is it common I wonder? Is it even a recognized condition?
Bacon intolerant.
Bacon used to seem so innocuous. Something I’d have with a full English or occasionally in a sandwich if I was feeling lazy. Nice with chips and a fried egg.
But it wasn’t something I ever craved. I could live without it. Just as well really. Because now I’m going to have to.
It gives me... for want of a better acronym, IBS. Painful guts. Agonising wind. Tortuous cramps. Enough to keep me awake for a night so that I feel like death warmed up (or even cold bacon uncooked) the next day. It affects my work, my writing, my entire joie de vivre.
I’ve had to say no to it. My wife, a true bacon lover, has gone into mourning. A number of her superlative dishes feature bacon as an ingredient. They will have to be modified or dropped or else I no longer eat with my family at those times but make do with a tin of soup or a spring roll from the local Chinese.
Little pig, little pig, how divisive you are!
I’m hoping it is just bacon. Just rashers. But I admit I am feeling a growing suspicious towards pork and crackling and chops... and trotters I’ve never been into anyway. And do not ever serve me a hog’s head – I will just take the apple from its mouth and shove it somewhere where the sun don’t shine. I guarantee you won’t like it.
So. Goodbye bacon. Goodbye butties. Goodbye to the soft pink rashers of my childhood. Goodbye to those gloriously blackened crispy bits.
I’m going cold turkey. The war of attrition has begun.
Me and the Danish are through.
