The other day we went out for burgers and a movie. By a movie, I mean The Revenant (which was amazing, and awful, and awfully amazing), and by a burger, in my case, I mean a salmon burger, because I don't eat meat anymore, but still eat fish.
After I polished off my grilled asparagus, because grilled asparagus, Missy offered me some of her fries.
As it happens, my favorite kind of french fries is Missy's fries.
Except these fries, somehow, by accident, wound up having a tiny piece of bacon in them. I didn't even think it was bacon at first. It looked like a like crispy fry bit. So I popped it in my mouth, chewed it, swallowed it.
Only as I was already chewing it, and in mid-swallow, did I realize what it was.
I used to like bacon. I wasn't some sort of bacon-maniac, but I did enjoy it. A fellow vegetarian friend of mine told me once that after they'd stopped eating meat, on the few occasions when they had had it again, it didn't taste good to them. They described it as tasting sort of dirty. Not dirty like illicitly forbidden, but dirty like, has-mud-on-it.
I don't know if that was how I'd describe that little bit of bacon, but I can tell you this - I didn't like it.
I found that really surprising, and kind of validating. I've lost the taste for it. I'm kind of glad.