Bacon, Anybody

Not more than twenty days into his presidency and the political pundits were right. Trump is going to ruin the country. The first sign of pending doom? The massive pork shortage that is looming over our country.



Artist's Rendition of Bacon

Sure, we all knew Trump would cut out waste in government and get rid of pork spending, but who knew it would lead to a nationwide bacon shortage?

As I understand it, the "other white meat" dearth was tied to Trump's immigration policy. Most refugees escape to the United States carrying a piglet or chicken. The immigration ban has severely limited the swine population. A friend of my son lives in Hong Kong. He says that farm animals are common passengers on trains in China. Farmers bring hogs, calves, pigs and chickens on trains to take them to market. He explained,

"You have to pick your train carefully."

The criteria being the train going back is far more preferable. Here in America, you can't bring a farm animal onto public transportation unless it's a "service pet," that is, an animal needed to cope with anxiety or stress.

A Chameleon

One time, I sat next to a dude on a plane who had a chameleon as a service pet. It was perched on his shoulder with both eyes looking about independently. The lizard may have calmed this guy down, but its constant scanning of the cabin with those two unfettered, beady eyes really freaked me out. He even fed the thing by opening a container of live crickets into which the chameleon launched its sticky tongue to fetch a hapless insect. At one point, the chameleon zeroed in on a mole on my arm, then launched its glue coated tongue.

I screamed like a piglet once his tongue landed on my arm. The person in front of the dude pushed his seat back, and lizard man immediately exhibited an exorbitant amount of disdain. He was mad at the guy in front of him for using the space the airline provides every passenger, all while he ignored his service iguana stuck to my arm. Apparently the chameleon wasn't working as a stress reliever because he began pushing the guy's seat back. The man in the seat stood and said,

"Dude, what is your problem?"

"You didn't ask," gecko man answered.

Seat guy retorted, "Ask what?"

"If you could move your seat back."

Now, seat guy was fuming and iguana man was angry too. I sat silently with a chameleon stuck to my arm. A steward came by and tried to sort the whole thing out. After reviewing the situation, she made the call to move chameleon man to first class. The dude unstuck his service pet from my arm, then made his way to the greener, more luxurious pastures at the front of the plane. The steward gave seat guy another bag of beer nuts. I got nothing. Not even a napkin to wipe the iguana spit off my arm.

The Law of Unintended Consequence often rears its ugly head in these situations. A woman in first class was traveling with a sizeable service pig. Apparently, it's becoming quite common. Back in October a woman flew on US Airways from Philadelphia to Seattle with a 300 lb. hog. I don't know what happened on my flight because I was in the bathroom, trying to clean the iguana junk off my arm, but apparently the pig made an inflight snack of the chameleon. I wish I had seen that unfold, but I didn't. I could only imagine what went down.

What we have now is the Law of Unintended Consequences coupled with the Butterfly Effect. The ban on refugees resulted in fewer migrants crossing into our country with small pigs in tow. This led to a less diverse swine population which became more susceptible to mad cow disease. Fewer pigs caused less methane production which led to a thicker ozone layer. Too much ozone was exacerbated by women using a pump for their VO5 hairspray instead of a can of pressurized aerosol for the past thirty years, resulting in excessive greenhouse gases, which raised the surface temperature, further killing off pigs. The increased greenhouse gases caused Global Warming. The result was less bacon in America.

I think it also killed the whales.