When I was a junior in high school, my father forcefully loaded my two brothers and me into an RV for a cross-country jaunt into the wild west. In retrospect, he was obviously hankering for some forced family bonding after he and my mother began speaking to each other only via very expensive lawyers. But at the time, I was convinced it was simply a concentrated effort to ruin my image (most of my friends were jetting to Mexico for a week of blissfully consequence free underage drinking). Yet despite my avid protestations and his obvious lack of regard for my position on the social ladder, the four of us piled into the rickety RV, which I later christened “Phil,” and took off on our great adventure to Los Angeles and back.
The trip traversed more than 3,200 miles of bumpy desert highway. We had just over 7 days to make the journey, which put us covering roughly 500 miles per day. Combine that with needing to stop at every single dinosaur related attraction for my brother Brian (you’d be surprised how many there are) and we were on a tight schedule. We were only able to rest in LA (our long awaited destination) for like 22 hours. Why am I telling you all this? Because those 22 hours changed my life in a very unexpected way. In those 22 hours, my male family members and I ate at In-N-Out Burger. Twice.
A short 2 years later in my fall semester at American University, I made the decision to become a full-fledged vegetarian. I have been almost unwaveringly devoted to this decision since December of 2006. It’s true that twice I have been hungover enough to eat some Sweet and Sour Chicken and I do pick around the ham pieces in my Mammaw’s butter beans but I have legitimately not eaten red meat since committing to what I believe is a much more ethical and responsible way of consuming. But I have always sworn that if I were near an In-N-Out I would throw my beliefs to the wind and eat a freakin’ hamburger.
I’m sure you can see where this is going. They have In-N-Out Burgers in Vegas.
and I ate one. (technically half – didn’t want to get sick)
Judge me if you must. Sometimes you have to put a promise to yourself above above a promise to cows.
It was everything I remember it being from that fateful RV trip… and so much more.
Wow! You better not come to Dallas, we are getting one soon!