Five Minute Friday: Bacon

Gentle Reader,

Due to my desire to throw my laptop into the lake, I skipped the chat again. The device isn’t broken. We’re just at a tough stage of our relationship. But I could hardly avoid plugging in and turning on when I heard that Kate’s prompt for us this week is: bacon.

Go.

This is hilarious. Bacon has been a thing in the chat for weeks now. I don’t remember how it got started. Now we’ve actually gone en masse and voted on this word and made it a real prompt. I love it.

Organizers of women’s breakfasts take note: We appreciate the fruit and pastries, but for the love of Jimmy Dean, give us some bacon. (Regular, turkey and vegan options, please).

I can’t eat the delicious meat candy very often. And by “very often,” I mean that the succulent goodness should pass my lips less than half a dozen times a year. Even that number is probably too high. It’s a grease and fat thing. My decrepit liver isn’t woman enough to handle it. (#sadface)

The thing about bacon is that it has the ability to bring people together. (Stick with me). The crispy strips are usually served at breakfast or at whatever meal/time of day one chooses to consume breakfast foods. Families gather around the table (or, if we’re real, get comfy on the couches and flip the television on) with their plates of waffles or pancakes or French toast or croissants. Couples sit at diner counters; she gets the fruit-and-yogurt parfait, he gets the eggs. (And they steal bites from each other). A group of goofy teenagers finally wakes late on a Saturday morning and stumbles out of the sleepover cocoon, looking for sustenance.

In all of these scenarios, enter bacon. A little sweet from the syrup invasion. Nibbled on between bites of raspberry. Zapped in the microwave, grease-soaked paper towel dirtying the turntable because of course teenagers wouldn’t think to put everything on a plate.

Regular, turkey or vegan. Somehow this thing called bacon has entered the national consciousness. Become part of our shared experience.

And that is weirdly beautiful.

Stop.