What would Andrei Codrescu do?

I’ve been eating fried pig skin lately. In some parts of the world it would be called chicharrones. In other parts of the world it would be called fried pig skin. Or maybe fried pig fat. No matter. It is fried, made of pig skin or fat, and quite tasty in its own way.

However, it did get me to wondering, what the wisest soul since Red Barber would say about all this. Of course, that would be Andrei Codrescu. I wondered what Andrei would do. I can only wonder, for I have neither the insight nor intellect as the saged AC. So, I drifted off to sleep…with the words of Andrei coming to me as I dozed.

“This morning I awoke in a state of near delirium from a night of too much eating and drinking. My tongue was covered by a herd of a thousand tiny sheep. But they weren’t ordinary sheep, mind you. They were sheep that had dipped their thousands of tiny sheep hooves in fried pig fat and chili peppers, with just a hint of lime. They were herding themselves up and down my tongue, waiting for me to wake up so they could start reminding me that I should never again spend the evening with friends who encourage me to drink too many beers that are the color of motor oil while munching small bits of fried pig fat accompanied by the incidental cigarette.

These sheep knew exactly what they were doing. They were wandering up and down my tongue, stomping their tiny sheep hooves in between my taste buds and telling me ‘you shouldn’t do that. There are much better things in life to eat than fried pig fat.’

After several minutes of waiting for the sheep to settle down and go somewhere more interesting to them, I realized that they were not leaving, and that I would have to deal with these sheep on their own terms. ‘I will fool them,’ I thought. 'These sheep are not in control. This is my tongue and they have no right to be here.'

I went to the kitchen to find the most appealing and alluring kind of sheep food that I had. With the kitchen mostly empty, it turned out to be a tin of anchovies. (It was either that or water crackers. I figured that miniature sheep would prefer tiny salted fish.) ‘Ha! This will fix the little devils!' I thought to myself. I opened the tin of anchovies and held it up to my mouth, sticking my tongue out just a bit, in order to make a small sheep ramp for the sheep to exit on.

I waited.

In a few moments I realized that the sheep were not buying it. They were all still back on my tongue, marching in circles and practicing their halftime routines for when they got called up to major league football.

I decided that there was nothing to do but to call in extra forces. I eyed my coffee pot, which was still gurgling with its morning effort to squeeze out a bit of caffeine for my breakfast.

‘If anchovies can’t get these little devils, then perhaps some very hot coffee will.’ I poured a cup.

Throwing the contents of the cup into my mouth, I began to swirl it back and forth and from side to side. It was at this moment that I realized that I was in enormous pain. I spit the hot coffee into the sink and muttered, ‘damned sheep.’

Turning my eye back toward the coffee pot, I noticed the half eaten bag of fried pig fat chunks. I thought, ‘what the hell’ and popped a spicy, crunchy pig fat bit into my mouth. The thousand tiny sheep became instantly quiet, except for the bleating noise of ‘more beer.’ I had won the battle, and lost the war.”