It was a normal Sunday morning full of normal Sunday things, like going to church and making lemon pancakes for my daughter and her friend (and me – my lemon pancakes are amazing,) cleaning, completing a couple laundry cycles and power-watching Parks and Rec on Netflix. Gazing absently at the refrigerator shelves in an attempt to divine what felt “right” for dinner, I discovered a three pound pork roast, purchased two days prior, attempting to escape detection behind a wall of stacked yogurt. Hiding as it was, it clearly did not desire to be sacrificed, but would be, mainly because it was going to go bad if I didn’t use it (or freeze it) soon. I had earlier purchased broccoli, bananas and other sundry items on my way home from church, and therefore saved myself another trip to the store, a task for which I had no enthusiasm.
I began preparing the meal but quickly ran into trouble with the cloth netting holding the roast together. Do I remove it before or after I cook it? I checked first with my fiance’, who readily admitted her ignorance in all things related to the netting of meat. I then called my Mom, who said it should come off after it’s cooked, but since I don’t trust my Mom when it comes to cooking I kept searching. My future brother-in-law answered on the third ring and initially sounded decisive about removing the rope. Under further interrogation, however, his initially resolute response became somewhat less resolute, and after some hemming and hawing told me that if it were him he’d “just take the damn thing off.” Admittedly, he sounded a bit drunk, but I trusted his impaired opinion on such matters more than my Mother’s sober one. We also talked for a bit, if for nothing more than common courtesy, and he related the story of how his wife (my fiance’s sister) couldn’t sleep the night before due to an internal struggle she was having over whether she should have made muffins before she went to bed that evening or if was ok to wait until morning. During this portion of the conversation it dawned on me that these are the problems many of us face on a day to day basis in the U.S. Net on/net off. Muffins the night before/muffins the morning the of.
While I was confounded by the issue of meat netting I was also pleased that, most likely, that would be the biggest problem I had to solve that day. After all, if I was in a war zone I could have been faced with transporting myself and my family safely to a refugee camp, or wondering where best to scavenge for my next meal. I felt somewhat triumphant that the society in which I resided, although a happy accident of birth, had progressed to the point where I never worried about finding a refugee camp or competing with dogs over left over scraps of food. Go democracy and capitalism! Granted, one may argue that my lack of life-threatening problems is a temporary state of being. And this may be true. However, I’m pretty sure the majority of my 320 million or so countrymen are happy to work in a way that maintains this state. And again I so go democracy and capitalism! I shan’t worry about muffins this night.