So I was reading Pat Rothfuss’s newest blog entitled Being Evil about his son and the sometimes evil things we say to get a laugh. It was funny and it reminded me of a story from when I was about ten years old.

I grew up on a farm where we raised all of our own meat and a fair amount of our fruits and veggies. There was one year where I could even sing the 12 Days of Christmas using the exact number of farm animals we had. A proud and shining moment in my history mind you.

I understood that we ate our pigs and cows. I learned young never to get attached to the animals. My younger sister who was six at the time did not quite understand this yet. She had named our two pigs Spock and Oreo. I however used to tease her that they were named Bacon and Porkchop, much to her distaste.

These damn pigs were always getting out. One day my father had had enough and he called the butcher. Done and done.

Dad took me aside and asked if I would not tell my siblings the specifics of how farm to fork worked. They knew we were eating pork or beef or chicken etc., but they didn’t need to know it was their ‘pets’ we’d been consuming.

A couple of weeks later we’re all sitting down for a nice dinner of mashed potatoes, some sort of green, and pork chops. My younger sister was being particularly obnoxious that dinner. I don’t remember the specifics about what was so annoying. What I do remember was the look my father gave me and what he said next.

“Don’t do it Miranda. Be the bigger person and just eat your dinner. Mel, knock it off.” He growled at us to listen.

There was no question in my mind looking back, he knew exactly what I was going to do. He could read my face, the wheels spinning.

I looked down at my plate and dramatically cut a slice of pork chop. I picked up the piece with my fork and spun at Mel. “Mmmm Spock!” I shoved the slice into my mouth and chewed while cutting another piece. I forked it, “Mmmmmm Oreo!”

My mother about died from shock first and laughter second. Neither my mom or dad could look at me as they tried to comfort and lie to my now sobbing sister who was disgusted at the contents of her plate.

Lets just say that she didn’t eat pork for more then fifteen years. I can look back at this vengeful moment and laugh still today. Now, all these years later so can she (thankfully).