The Past is My Future

They say real change isn't possible. We may make minor adjustments, have opinions that grow or shrink with our perspective, but at the core we remain who we have always been. Some would say that we remain what we were always meant to be.

For those of you who know me, you know I'm far from healthy, but I'm working on it. One of the more recent changes I've made was getting more picky about where I buy my meat (insert meat joke here…then insert a meat insertion joke behind it…then insert a meat insertion in the behind joke), and how the animals are treated during their short delicious lives here on Earth. So, last night I head over to The North Market to pick up some chicken and fish. Things were much slower on a Tuesday night than they are when I normally go on Sunday afternoons. At North Market Poultry and Game I got to speak with the guy behind the counter a bit about their farming methods and products, and it was evident immediately that this guy was passionate about what he does.

"OK, that's two chicken breasts split. Anything else, man?" he asked.

"Yeah, do you guys have any ground turkey?"

"Sure do, but it's frozen. Is that cool?"

"Well, what about this ground chicken here?"

"Dude, you've never had the ground chicken from here?"

"Nope."

"Dude, you've got to get this. It's so delicous as burgers, and you can use it instead of ground beef. Plus, it's cheaper than the turkey. Bro, get the chicken."

"Sold."

I liked the guy immediately. He was totalling my order and asked me if I needed eggs. I did, and he grabbed a dozen from the cooler.

"Dude, have you ever had our eggs?"

"Nope."

"Oh man, you're going to love these. You know, when you're baking or cooking or whatever, you can use any eggs you want, but if you're going to just sit and eat an egg…this is the one you want to eat."

His eyes lit up as he talked about the eggs, and it would have been funnier to me if he hadn't been so sincere. He was excited about what they had to offer, and he wanted me to be excited too. Here he was, some guy in his mid to late twenties, long scraggily hair, eyes a bit glazed, letting me know there are "every day eggs" and "special eggs". I had no idea there was such a thing as a "special egg".

He reminded me of characters from another time in my life. I was immediately transported back to being in school, in some stranger's house with two sacks of marijuana sitting on the coffee table in front of me while the dealer talked.

"This is good daily smoke right here. Dependable and smooth. The other here…well, it's more of a weekend smoke. You need to make sure you don't have anywhere to go for awhile if you're going to smoke that."

I always wanted the weekend weed, but never could afford it. It always bugged me that this was the case, and I told myself that when I got older and I had more money I'd only smoke the "weekend weed". That time never came, and I stopped smoking years and years ago.

So, this morning, I stood at the fridge wondering if this random Wednesday was a big enough occasion to indulge in a "special egg". Fuck that, I decided. I'm a middle class white male living in a condo I'll never be able to sell and I spend my days in a cubicle that I can't see over the walls of. I'll never indulge in "weekend smoke" and will have to find other indulgences. If that doesn't rate Special Eggs on a Wednesday, I don't know what does. I may have traded my weed for eggs, but in the end I don't think there's that much difference in the two. I'm such a different person than I was back while I was in school, but I still want the elite purchase.

I cracked two beautiful brown eggs into a Pam covered skillet this morning and felt special.