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Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent for a good innocent virgin Catholic boy like me. Well this time of year always reminds me of a funny story that happened many aeons ago when I was a college scholar in the foothills of the North Carolina Mountains. (Doc you know already where this story is going don’t you?).

Back in 1994, one of my roommates….lets call him Cory. Well that is his real name, so why not call him Cory? Ok, Cory was a good innocent virgin Catholic boy too. He put himself through school and worked full time while taking 15 odd credits a semester. He becomes an assistant manager at McDonalds. Certainly not the prestige as the CEO of Proctor & Gamble, but hey it’s noble for a 22 year old in Boone, North Carolina. Anyway, Cory was strapped for cash all the time. But luckily for him, as an assistant manager, he was able to indulge for free in the epicurean delights that McDonalds had to offer. So basically he began to eat McDonald’s food virtually every meal, every day. So much so, he acted as if he was addicted to their food. Sausage, egg & cheese McMuffin and hash browns for breakfast. Big Mac, large fries and apple pie for lunch. But for dinner he would eat light and just have a Crispy Chicken Sandwich and small fries. Yes he was Morgan Spurlock’s wet dream. And if I remember correctly, he hated coffee so he had soda for breakfast too. Not quite a South Beach Diet. More like a South Bronx Diet.

As Catholics, during Lent we are supposed to atone for our sins by not eating meat on Fridays. A sacrifice for Yahweh. Now it is the first Friday of the Lenten season 1994. So Mayor McCory and I that afternoon were getting ready to drive to his McDonalds store for dinner. Suddenly, Cory realized he had a dilemma. This is when Cory turned to me and uttered the following phrase that still haunts me to this day: ‘I can’t eat meat today so that means I have to eat a Filet O’ Fish’.

The operative words in this proclaim is ‘have to’.
‘I can’t eat meat today so that means I HAVE TO eat a Filet O’ Fish’.
‘HAVE TO’!

That is fucking scary.

Cory had no choice. He backed himself into a corner and had to eat McDonald’s contribution to seafood cuisine in lieu of beef or poultry. Cory sounded like a heroin slinger addicted to his daily needle blasts into his veins. He had become brainwashed by the fascist McReich of Ronald McDonald and Grimace. He must have been forced to read McMein Kampf by the Hamburgler. Judgment at Nuremburger. Poor Cory. I figured with his diet, he was not going to live past 35. A heart attack in waiting.

Where is Cory now you say? Well I lost touch with him. Last I heard he did make it past 35 and is married with 3 kids! I doubt he still eats Micky Ds as much anymore but the man sounds like he is doing quite well for himself. But whenever I go near I fish sandwich, my eyes welt for a man who was once a McMenu hophead.

- The Mountain Cat