Okay, there’s this thing happening lately.  Lots of people are seeing it, I think, but hardly anyone is making noise about it.

The thing is, I don’t think we can let this behavior be normalized – I don’t think it’s a thing that ANY of us should just ignore, just say “Sure, whatever, it’s just my life but go ahead and keep doing that thing you’re doing.”  We can’t do that!  It’s NOT RIGHT.  So here we go.  After this event today, I can’t keep quiet.

Who the HELL decided that Thick-Cut Bacon on BLT’s was a good idea?

There’s no way this came from the BLT lovers.  None.  Thick-cut bacon?  I want to EAT my BLT, not wrestle with it.  You can’t bite through that shit, you need to grapple with it, and it’s not proper.  There are a handful of things that we all agree on, and one of them is that a BLT is meant to be devoured – eaten – smoothly, pleasantly – it’s not one of the “challenge foods”!

I mean, sure, some meals you’re like “OKAY! Let’s do this, I’m ready for a fight!”  Lobster.  You sit down to lobster and you’re cracking and snapping and twisting, I mean it comes with A BIB AND A GODDAMNED TOOLKIT.  Some foods are expected to be challenges. Clams.  Pomegranates (Ridiculous, but worth it.)  Even, like, KIWI!  Kiwi you’re like “Oh, geez, this is gonna be good.  First though I gotta peel this fuzzy crap off here, oh geez, it’s slippery – DAMMIT I DROPPED IT AGAIN – Why does this fuzzy peel make me think of a pig’s snout? Don’t think about it, peel it – eat the kiwi.”

But we’re talking about a BLT.  Skip the B for a second: It’s lettuce, and tomato.  Basic.  Neither of those are high on the “special skills required” meter.  Then you have mayo.  Just mayo.  Not Miracle Whip, I will punch you in the throat, stop it.  Lettuce, tomato, mayo.  On white bread.  Seriously – white bread.  I ordered this BLT, and they offered me rye bread.  “What?” I asked.  “NO!  No.  White bread, lightly toasted.”  He looked at me oddly, and I realized it was because my voice had gone up an octave in panic.  Rye bread.  And just when I thought that there was no way things could get stranger… he asked if I wanted cheese on it.

Cheese.

Spots swam in front of my eyes.  I had a little moment of tunnel vision… It’s like I stepped through the looking glass into some alternate universe where nothing makes sense.  My palms started to sweat.  I looked around the tiny little deli/sandwich counter for help, but no one would make eye contact.

“No”, I said, trying to slow my breathing, “NO CHEESE on my BLT”, and I stopped talking out loud because I was trying to be polite to someone who clearly is not from, y’know, our dimension.  I don’t know,  maybe he was just tired, or maybe he was raised improperly by, like, wolves or marauding gypsies, or marauding gypsy wolves.  Whatever, I declined cheese on my BLT.  That would be a BLTC.  Or a BLCT.  Or a CBLT, which I think is a Canadian sports league but honest to God after this whole thing I just don’t have the energy to check.

So.  This BLT experience has really got me anxious, and I’ve only barely finished placing the order… but we soldier on, this confused young man and I.  Moments pass.  I can’t remember much of what happened, I just sat and tried to get my bearings back. The BLT arrives.  “Here you go.  I think you’ll like this, it’s got 6 slices of our thick-cut bacon on it.”

What. Is. Happening.

The cook-wolf-counterman-gypsy departs.  I inspect the sandwich.  Yes.  He’s correct.  Where there should be delicious, crispy, thin bacon strips… there are giant slabs of meat.

There are some things, in the universe, that are just… necessary.  Hydrogen, for instance.  Hydrogen is one of the building blocks of our universe – you wouldn’t just, say, remove it and replace it with Thicker Hydrogen, just because you could.  Bad things would result.  You wouldn’t pluck a fish from the sea and say “Here, swim in the air”, or just add a little cousin that no one ever heard of into a popular tv show just because the cast is getting old, because that would be completely ridiculous.

And yet, here we are.

Bacon in a BLT is meant to be thin.  Crispy.  That crispiness contrasts perfectly, you see, with the softness of a tomato slice, the gentleness of a lettuce leaf.  I don’t want bacon that requires me to saw it with my incisors for hours on end, I want bacon that explodes into a million shards of stabby, nitrate infused heaven the second I bite it.  Then those shards combine with the smooth, creamy mayo and the tomato and lettuce and toasted white bread and they achieve the state of gustatorial perfection that only a proper BLT can achieve.

Please.  I urge you.  Let your voice be heard.  We can no longer be silent on this issue.

Only together can we make a difference.

It’s time to take a stand.