I swear that sometimes life in Georgia feels like the punchline of a Jeff Foxworthy joke. Case in point: the guy who came to my door this morning. I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard the doorbell ring. I didn't run downstairs to answer it, as I wasn't dressed yet. However, I did peek out the blinds. A pickup truck with the words "TheCattleExchange.net" printed across the side was parked in front of my mailbox.Risking exposure, I continued to stare for a moment and thought, "Cattle Exchange? I don't have any cows. A fat dog, but no cows. Are they saying I'm a cow? If so, what are they wanting to exchange me for?" I then let the blind slat drop and looked up the site online.
Cattle Exchange doesn't exchange cattle per se. It exchanges freeze dried beef and other meat products. However, the company doesn't utilize a truck like Swann's. That is, the back end of the truck is not a freezer. Instead, from what I could tell this morning, they put what looks like the type of freezer my mom has in her garage on the back of a normal pickup truck and put the meat in it.
Call me a meat snob if you'd like, but I'm not about to buy meat out of the back of a pickup truck. First, how are they keeping that freezer cold? Have they plugged it into the cigarette lighter? Second, how do I know that they're really selling me what they say they're selling me? For all I know, they have scraped a couple of possums, squirrels, and armadillos off the side of the road and are now passing them off as the other white meat. At least in the grocery store, I know that the meat has been inspected by the USDA or the FDA or whoever inspects that stuff. I don't have to worry about eating roadkill.
Yuck! Just the thought of warm, spoiled, possum meat is enough to make me consider becoming a vegetarian. It's also enough to make me avoid the people renting the house two doors down. Remember my post about the guy who was running down the road in just his boxer shorts at 2 a.m.? Well, apparently his girlfriend let him back in because I saw him buy a couple of boxes off the back of the truck. (Yes, he was fully clothed this time.) I hope that doesn't mean that I'm going to smell their grill tonight. If I do, I won't be able to think of anything but a gray, furry, pointed face lying above the charcoal. That image, in turn, may very well lead to an eventful night of porcelain prayers instead of American Idol.
