As some of you know, I'm a bad Catholic--which means that I subscribe to Catholicism, but am terrible about keeping all of the observances. Which, come to think of it, may make me an average Catholic. Anyway, as I mentioned in the Daily Fluff, yesterday was the begining of Lent, the traditional time for giving up candy bars while hoping to lose a few pounds before spring.
And of course, there's the meat thing. If you're not Catholic and have always wondered about the glut of fried fish commercials during March, now you have the explanation. We Catholics are supposed to abstain from meat from Fridays during Lent. Unless we forget and get a burger or slice of pepperoni pizza for lunch. Then, we're supposed to stare guiltily at our meal for a minimum of 5 seconds and attempt to quickly come up with a justification for eating it anyway. Popular choices include, "Aw, hell. I already screwed up so I may as well finish," and, "I'll just make up for it tomorrow--oh wait, I have that barbecue. Ok, I'll make up for it on Monday."
The funny thing to me about the no-meat thing is that I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. Only being able to eat fish or vegetarian food must have seemed like a hell of a sacrifice back before safe transport of seafood and culinary knowledge had advanced quite as widely. (Though there was an interesting effort among various monestaries, etc. to categorize some things--like rabbit--as "fish" for the purposes of Lent. Which is a much more creative response to the mistake guilt mentioned above. It's a shame that I don't have the religious authority to declare pepperoni to count as "fish." I also think that the whole fish-on-Fridays thing is to blame for those people who say that they're vegetarian, but eat seafood. Sorry, real vegetarians. I know those people are annyong. Our bad.)
Anyway, as I was saying, I think it's more or less getting over if you enjoy lobster or shrimp scampi or sushi, etc., etc. for your Friday Lenten meal. How is that supposed to be keeping to the spirit of deprivation? "Yeah, it's Lent, so I can't eat steak today. I know! I'll have the lobster." I think that the rules should be amended a bit so that you can eat meat, but you would have to eat a disappointing meal on Fridays during Lent. So, for example, good sushi would be a no-no, but you could eat Spaghettios instead. Or a hot pocket. Or just about anything at Olive Garden. You get the point.
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