That Cancerous Yearning

This morning I went to the discount tobacco place in a nearby sketchy neighborhood to get my reasonably priced tobacco products (seriously, a tin of chewing tobacco is $1.50 cheaper than anywhere else in town). As I alighted from the store with my purchases, I observed a little old lady feebly walk across the street. As she entered the parking lot, her eye caught something on the ground. She picked up a six inch long brown stick about the width of a pinky finger. As I pulled out of the lot, she took a bite out of the stick and I saw, for the first time in a long time, the familiar gray viscera of a certain popular meat product that I used to move case after case of in my father's old warehouse. Pangs of homesickness erupted throughout me. It was not that some random lady picked up some random trash and ate it. It was a fond reminiscence of the countless hours spent moving boxes, the dust caking black in my nostrils and the pain shooting in my back the next day, that hit me the most.

I did not see if she took another bite, but as I made my turn out of the lot, I looked back and there was a wry smile of satisfaction on her face. She snapped into a free slice of road meat. It's the little things...